
Class 

Book 

Copyright )1^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF 
THE WORLD 



GREAT RELIGIONS 

OF THE 

WORLD 



BY HERBERT A. GILES, LL.D. ; T. W. RHYS 
DAVIDS, LL.D., Ph.D. ; OSKAR MANN ; SIR 
A. C. LYALL, K.C.B , G.C.I. E. ; D. MENANT ; 
SIR LEPEL GRIFFIN, K.CS.I. ; FREDERIC 
HARRISON; E. DENISON ROSS; THE REV. 
M. GASTER, Ph.D. ; THE REV. WASHINGTON 
GLADDEN, D.D., LL.D. ; CARDINAL GIBBONS 



A NEW EDITION 
WITH INTRODUCTIONS 




HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1912 



-^^■^° 



Gr1 



C[\ ^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1900. 190t, BY THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHINQ CO. 



COPYRIGHT. 1912. BY HARPER a BROTHERS 



PRINTEO IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
PUBUISHED MAY, 1912 



0° 



g>Cl.A3l4449 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CONFUCIANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
By Herbert A. Giles, LL.D., Professor of 
Chinese in Cambridge University 3 

BUDDHISM. By T. W. Rhys Davids, LL.D., Ph.D., 
Professor of Pali and Buddhist Litera- 
ture IN University College, London ... 33 

MOHAMMEDANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
TURY. By Oskar Mann, Orientalist in the 
Royal Library, Berlin 53 

BRAHMINISM. By Sir A. C. Lyall, K.C.B., G.C.I.E., 
Member of Council of the Secretary of 
State for India 81 

ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS. By D. Me- 
nant. Author of " History of the Parsis " . 109 

SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS. By Sir Lepel Griffin, 
K.C.S.1 139 

POSITIVISM: ITS POSITION, AIMS, AND IDEALS. 
By Frederic Harrison 167 

BABISM. By E. Denison Ross, Professor of Per- 
sian in University College, London . . . .189 

JEWS AND JUDAISM IN THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
TURY. By the Rev. M. Gaster, Ph.D., Chief 
Rabbi of the Sephardi Communities of Eng- 
land 219 

THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY. By the Rev. 
Washington Gladden, D.D., LL.D 253 

CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY. By his Eminence, Car- 
dinal Gibbons 281 

iii 



CONFUCIUS 

KuNG-Fu-TsE, or, as Latinized by the Jesuit missionaries, Con- 
fucius, the great philosopher of China, according to the best au- 
thorities, was born in the state of Loo, within the district later 
known as Keo-fu-hien, in the Province of Shantung, June 19, 
551 B.C. He was the son of a high government official, who died 
when the boy was three years old. His early education was super- 
vised by his mother, a woman of illustrious birth, and remarkable 
stories are narrated of his fondness for study and his proficiency, 
while a child, in philosophy. 

From his seventeenth to his twenty-fourth year he was em- 
ployed in the public service, and at thirty he entered upon his 
career as a teacher of morality and philosophy. He had married 
at an early age; but after his wife had borne him a son he di- 
vorced her, "that he might attend more closely to his studies." 
For a time he lived in seclusion, in contemplation. When, how- 
ever, he felt himself sufficiently well grounded for the task he had 
set for himself, he reappeared in public and began to seek the 
courts of princes, who at this period were very numerous in China, 
and had formed what would now be called a powerful inter-state 
confederacy. 

His first journeyings were through the various states of the 
Chinese Empire, whose princes he earnestly urged to establish 
wise and peaceful administrations. While doing so he also made 
himself intimate with all ranks of society, pleading for the pro- 
motion of virtue and social order. Within three years he is said 
to have effected a thorough change in the moral condition of the 
country and to have gained three thousand "disciples," ten of 
whom were so thoroughly informed on all the then essentials of 
knowledge that they became known as "the ten wise men of 
China." 

From the princes of his own country he next sought the kings 
of neighboring realms. He returned to his native state at the 
age of fifty-five, and was made its prime minister. Under his 



CONFUCIUS 

wise administration Loo attained an unwonted degree of pros- 
perity and happiness; but this condition was doomed to a short 
life. Through the influence of neighboring rulers the sovereign 
of Loo was induced to displace the benefactor of himself and his 
people, and Confucius was obliged to flee for his life. 

He now applied to several courts in northern China for an em- 
ployment that would permit him to continue his labors for the 
people's weal, but was everywhere repulsed. Subsequently, and 
largely through the appeals of his disciples, he returned to his 
native state, and made many ineffectual efforts to be reinstated 
in office. However, his rigid principles, his uncompromising ob- 
servance of them, and his marvelous zeal made for him enemies 
in high station wherever he went. 

As his years began to be a burden to him he gathered about 
him a few of his most constant followers, and, retiring from the 
world, began to write the works which became the sacred books 
of the Chinese. He died in his seventy- third year, 479 B.a 

His writings, after his death, were recognized throughout China 
as the paramount authority on all matters concerning morality 
and public virtue, and it was made a criminal offense to mutilate 
or in any way to alter their sense. Honors and high privileges 
were conferred upon his descendants, who have existed through 
nearly a hundred generations, and who, in the words of an appre- 
ciative authority, "may be called the only hereditary nobility in 
China." 

Confucianism, with its allied worship of ancestors, is credited 
with 256,000,000 adherents. It is the state religion of China, 
whose Emperor decreed the deification of its illustrious founder 
in 1906, and the bulk of its followers belong to that country, 
wherever located. 



CONFUCIANISM IN THE NINE 
TEENTH CENTURY 



Between 1662 and 1796 two of China's great- 
est emperors occupied the throne, with a short 
intervening reign, each of them for over sixty 
years. These one hundred and twenty years may 
be said to have been chiefly devoted to the exten- 
sion of learning and the glorification of Confu- 
cianism. A prodigious amount of literature was 
produced under the direct patronage of these two 
monarchs. Besides dictionaries and encyclopae- 
dias of various kinds, a vast collection of com- 
mentaries upon the Confucian canon was published 
in 1675, filling no less than one hundred and twen- 
ty large volumes. Everj^thing, in fact, was done 
which, in the words of the Sacred Edict (1670), 
would tend to '' get rid of heterodoxy and exalt 
the orthodox doctrine.'' Yet, during a consider- 
able part of this period of Confucian revival, 
Roman Catholic missionaries were not only toler- 
ated, but even honored. Such treatment, accord- 
ing to the Paraphrase of the Sacred Edict, was 
not for any value attached to the religion they 

3 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

taught, which was stigmatized as unsound, but 
solely because they understood astronomy and 
mathematics, and were usefully employed in re- 
forming the Chinese calendar. 

In 1795 the great emperor Chien Lung, who had 
received Lord Macartney, abdicated, and three 
years later he died. He was succeeded by his 
fifteenth son, known to us as the Emperor Chia 
Ching, from whose accession may be dated the 
turning of the tide. The new ruler proved to be 
dissolute and worthless. In 1803 he was at- 
tacked while riding in a sedan-chair through the 
streets of Peking, and had a narrow escape. This 
was found to be the result of a family plot, and 
many of the imperial clansmen suffered for their 
real or alleged share in it. Ten years later a 
band of assassins, belonging to a well-known 
secret society, very nearly succeeded in murder- 
ing him in his own palace. The effect of these 
attempts was to develop the worst sides of his 
character; he became a mere sensualist, and even 
gave up the annual hunting expedition, which 
had always been associated with Manchu energy. 
Such a man was not likely to do much for the 
advancement of the great teaching which was 
founded upon such obligations as filial piety and 
duty towards one's neighbor. Some few valuable 
works, aiding to elucidate the Confucian canon, 
were published during his reign, but there was 
no more the same imperial stimulus manifesting 
itself under a variety of forms, such as welcome 

4 



CONFUCIANISM 

encouragement, pecuniary assistance, and, last 
but not least, the supply to deserving books of 
prefaces written with the vermilion pencil. 

Confucianism was not for the moment exposed 
to any attacks. Roman Catholicism had been 
scotched by the formal expulsion of its mission- 
aries under the edicts of 1718 and 1724, and Prot- 
estants had, so far, not entered upon the field. 
It was only in 1807 that the Rev. Dr. Morrison, of 
dictionary fame, went out to Canton; and within 
a year he retired for safety and the convenience 
of his work to Macao. 

In 1820 the emperor known to us as Tao Kuang, 
second son of Chia Ching, succeeded to the throne. 
His courage had saved his father's life on the 
occasion of the attack on the palace in 1813, and 
he had been at once named heir apparent. He 
made a good beginning, and attempted to purify 
the court; but war with England, and rebellion 
in various parts of the empire, darkened his 
reign, and little progress was made. Gradually 
he learned to hate foreigners, and opposed their 
claims; and, borrowing a sa3dng some centuries 
old, he declared that he was not going to allow 
another man '4o snore alongside of his bed.'' 

There was, at an}^ rate, one great Confucianist 
who flourished during this period, and strove, both 
by his own works and b}^ the patronage he ex- 
tended to others, to keep alive the Confucian spirit. 
Under the friendl}^ auspices of Yuan -Yuan (1764- 
1849) was produced, in a uniform edition, a col- 

5 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

lection of more than one hundred and eighty sep- 
arate treatises on the canon by scholars of the 
present dynasty. This work fills one hundred 
and two large volumes, and was intended to be a 
continuation of the similar collection published 
in 1675. Of course, every one who is a follower of 
Confucius may be called a Confucianist, but a 
man is specially so distinguished by the Chinese 
if he has contributed to the enormous mass of 
literature which helps in any way to explain, or 
sets forth in glowing color and attractive form, 
the holy teachings of the master. 

The active opposition of Commissioner Lin (1785- 
1850) to the opium trade, which precipitated the 
war, was a direct outcome of his careful training 
in the Confucian school. The question of moral- 
ity and the appeal to justice which he introduced 
into his famous letter to the queen, asking her to 
put a stop to the opium trade, were both based 
upon the ethics of Confucius. He not only professed 
his firm adherence to Confucianism, but exhibited 
in his every-day life a lofty conception of its ideals. 
He is the one representative of China, during this 
reign, to whom all foreigners would ungrudgingly 
accord the title of an honest man and a true patriot. 

Tao Kuang w^as succeeded in 185 1 by his fourth 
son, known to us as the Emperor Hsien Feng. 
The reign of the latter is particularly associated 
with the Tai-ping rebellion, which shook the em- 
pire to its foundations, and, but for the presence 
of General Gordon, would probably have succeed- 

6 



CONFUCIANISM 

ed in putting an end to the Manchu-Tartar dynasty. 
In one of its aspects, it was a crusade against Con- 
fucianism, organized by a small band of men who 
had adopted a morbid and spurious Christianity. 
The large following which these leaders gathered 
around their banner knew nothing whatever of 
genuine Christianitj^ and very little of the doc- 
trines offered them by the soi-disant Brother of 
Christ, afterwards known as the Heavenly King. 
As matters turned out, the shock to Confucianism 
was a mere nothing; for, although the Heavenly 
King succeeded in capturing some six hundred 
cities in sixteen out of the eighteen provinces, 
so soon as the rebellion was crushed (1864) Con- 
fucianism at once and completely regained the 
ground it can hardly be said to have lost. It 
suffered most, perhaps, through the destruction 
of many printing establishments containing the 
blocks of now priceless editions of valuable works 
on the classics. On the other hand, it can be shown 
that Confucianism is sometimes extremely sensi- 
tive. It had been enacted that the Sacred Edict, 
mentioned above, should be publicly read to the 
people on the 1st and 15th of each month, at every 
important centre all over the empire. This prac- 
tice had been allowed to fall very much into desue- 
tude at Canton. But about the 3^ear 1850 a num- 
ber of educated Chinese, taking alarm at the open 
activity of Protestant missionaries, actually form- 
ed themselves into a society for reading and study- 
ing the Sacred Edict among themselves. 

7 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

No one, of course, could maintain that the mere 
study of Confucian doctrines would suffice to turn 
out men of high character, unless the seed were 
sown in minds, as Confucius said, ''fit for the 
reception of truth/' As a counterpoise to Com- 
missioner Lin, we may cite the case of Governor 
Yeh, whose action in the Arrow affair led to the 
bombardment and capture of Canton in 1857. When 
sent a prisoner to Calcutta, Yeh was asked why he 
never read, to pass the time. " All the books which 
are worth reading,'' he replied, "1 already know 
by heart." He was alluding to the Confucian 
canon, his intimate acquaintance with which had 
placed him high on the list of candidates for the 
coveted third degree. Yet this man was, as an 
official, little more than a. blood-thirsty tyrant. He 
is said to have put to death, first and last, no fewer 
than seventy thousand Tai-ping rebels. He had 
also become so unwieldy from self-indulgence that, 
although disguised for flight, he was unable to 
make the necessary effort to evade his pursuers. 

In 1 86 1 the emperor, who smoked opium to 
excess, died at Jehol, whither he had fled to escape 
from the English and French forces, then at the 
gates of Peking, and his son, Tung Chih, reigned 
in his stead. Coming to the throne as a mere 
child, the latter remained during his thirteen years 
of rule entirely under the guidance of the empress 
dowager, so that almost the first that was heard of 
him as an emperor was that he had fallen a victim 
to small-pox. He could not have learned much 

8 



CONFUCIANISM 

good about foreigners from his Confucian tutors, 
one of whom openly expressed his daily and night- 
ly longing ''to sleep on their skins/' Meanwhile, 
with the ratification of the treatj^ of Tientsin, a 
shadow fell across the path of Confucianism. 
Since the days of the opium war and the partial 
opening of China, the missionary question had 
gradually entered upon the acute stage in which 
it may be said to have remained ever since, and it 
had become needful to insert in the new treaty 
a clause protecting not only the Christian religion 
and its exponents, but its converts. This was, 
and always has been, resented by Confucianists 
as withdrawing the converts from their allegiance ; 
but it is difficult to say what other arrangement 
could have been made. Neither can it be fairly 
alleged that Protestant missionaries have ever 
abused their opportunities. 

With the close of the Tai-ping rebellion, with a 
settled government, and with more prosperous 
times generally, the production of books showed 
marked signs of increase. Clearly printed editions 
of the classics and kindred works were issued from 
Wu-chang, the capital of Hupeh; on execrable paper 
it is true, but at a price which placed them easily 
within reach of the masses. 

In 1872 Tseng Kuo-fan died, at the compara- 
tively early age of sixty-one. He had worn him- 
self out in the service of the state, first as a suc- 
cessful military commander and afterwards as a 
successful administrator. He was, further, a suc- 

9 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

cessful Confucianist, in the sense that his pure 
and incorrupt Hfe was a happy exempHfication of 
what Confucianism may lead to, if only its seed is 
dropped upon propitious soil. Though saturated 
with the principles and teachings of Confucian- 
ism, and undoubtedly hostile to foreigners, yet his 
memor3^ is hardly more honored among his own 
countrymen than by those whom he felt it his 
duty to oppose. After the Tientsin massacre of 
1870 he advocated a policy of peace w^ith foreign 
nations, thereby incurring the odium of the more 
fanatical of the literati. At his death it was re- 
ported to the throne that, '' when his wardrobe was 
examined to find some suitable garments for the 
last rites, nothing new could be discovered. Every 
article of dress had been worn many times; and 
this may be taken as an example of his rigid 
economy for himself and in all the expenditure 
of his family.'' 

In 1875 another child-emperor, known to us as 
Kuang Hsu, was placed upon the throne by the 
empress dowager. This unfortunate youth has 
been severely battered by the shocks of doom. 
The story of the reform movement, and of his 
virtual deposition in September, 1898, is fresh in 
the minds of all. Since then we have heard rumors 
of abdication, and again of restoration. Had 
he remained in power, Confucianism would have 
been forced to reconsider its attitude to foreign 
standards of thought and education. But upon 
his suspension it was determined that the old ex- 

IQ 



CONFUCIANISM 

amination sj^stem, which had prevailed almost 
unaltered for nearly six centuries, with its roots 
extending back to the Christian era, should be re- 
stored in its integrity. The introduction of '' new, 
depraved, and erroneous subjects,'' by which we 
must understand modern scientific teaching, was 
to be strictly prohibited under various pains and 
penalties. Thus, the occupation of the newly in- 
augurated Peking University was gone. For the 
time being, Confucianism is triumphant; and if 
the tablets of women are ever admitted to the 
Confucian temple, that of the empress dowager 
should be the first. Actuated, probably, by selfish 
motives, her anti-reform zeal has been invaluable 
to those who would maintain the paramountcy of 
Confucian education, with all its immediate influ- 
ences upon the governing classes of the country. 

A glance at a few questions actually set some 
few years ago at these public examinations will 
afford a good idea of the educational level to which 
Confucianism has raised the Chinese. The fol- 
lowing were subjects for essays : 

" (i.) To hold a middle course, without deviation, is as 
bad as holding an extreme. 

" (2.) Of suspended bodies, none can exceed in brightness 
the sun and the moon. 

" (3.) In the time of the Hsia dynasty (B. C. 2205-1766), 
the imperial drum was placed on feet; during the Shang 
dynasty (B. C. 1766-1122), it was supported on pillars; 
under the Chou dynasty (B. C. 1 122 -255), it was hung by 
a cord," 

II 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 
For a poem, the following theme was presented : 

" The azure precipice was half concealed in a mass of 
rolling clouds." 

In addition to essays and poems, several gen- 
eral papers of questions are set to the candidates. 
These comprise classical exegesis, history of an- 
cient and mediaeval China, ancient geography, 
etc., and are almost identical, mutatis mutandis, 
with papers on the languages and literatures of 
Greece and Rome, such as are set, for instance, 
at the annual examination of candidates for the 
Indian civil service. Here is a specimen of a 
classical question : 

" Mao Chang in his edition of the Odes interprets ' The 
Guests at the Feast ' to mean that Duke Wu was upbraiding 
Prince Yu. Han Ying in his edition says that Duke Wu 
is here repenting of his fault of drunkenness. Which editor 
is to be followed?'' 

Here is a question on the competitive system : 

"During the Tang dynasty (A. D. 618-907), personal 
appearance, fluency of speech, handwriting, learning, and 
decision were all taken into account at the examinations. 
How were the various merits of the candidates tested?'' 



It is the fashion to deride the Chinese curriculum, 
and to cry out for the introduction of ''science/' 
which would, no doubt, be very advantageous 
in many ways. At the same time, it must be 
confessed that the Chinese classics have had pre- 

12 



CONFUCIANISM 

cisely the effect attributed by Professor Jebb, in 
his lecture on ''Humanism in Education/' to the 
classics of Greece and Rome. Discarding the 
past tense for the present, his actual words apply 
with surprising force to the China of to-day : 

" At the close of this century, the classics still hold a virtual 
monopoly, so far as literary studies are concerned, in the 
public schools and universities. And they have no cause 
to be ashamed of their record. The culture which they 
supplj^, while limited in the sphere of its operation, has long 
been an efficient and vital influence, not only in forming 
men of letters and learning, but in training men who after- 
wards gain distinction in public life and in various active 
careers/' 

Several noble specimens of Confucianists have 
disappeared during the present reign. Shen Pao- 
cheng (1819-79), who first distinguished him- 
self against the Tai-ping rebels, was a stern Con- 
fucianist and, withal, a capable man of business. 
In 1867 he became director of the Foochow Ar- 
senal, which he started with the aid of M. Prosper 
Giquel, in the face of much opposition, launching 
his first gunboat in 1869. Successful as an ad- 
ministrator, he gained a lasting name for probity, 
courage, and frugality, leaving behind him in ma- 
terial wealth literally no more than he brought 
with him into the world. 

Another of&cial of the same class was Ting 
Jih-chang (1823-82). He was connected with the 
arsenals at Soochow and Foochow. He was a 
commissioner for the settlement of cases arising 

13 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

out of the Tientsin massacre. He became govern- 
or of Fuhkien, and in 1878 was sent to Foochow to 
arrange a very serious missionary difficulty in 
connection with some building operations. A 
Confucianist to the backbone, he earned the full 
respect of all foreigners, and when he withdrew 
into private life he carried with him a spotless 
reputation. 

With such a father as Tseng Kuo-fan, whose dy- 
ing injunctions to his children compare favorably 
with Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son, it is hard- 
ly a matter for wonder that the Marquis Tseng 
(1837-90), once ambassador to the Court of St. 
James, should have continued the best traditions 
of Confucianism. He promoted to his utmost the 
establishment of peaceful relations between China 
and foreign nations, and his death was a severe 
loss to Great Britain in particular. 

Probity, like its opposite, seems to run in families. 
In the same year with the Marquis Tseng died his 
uncle, Tseng Kuo-chuan, younger brother of Tseng 
Kuo-fan. He had risen to be Viceroy of the Two 
Kiang, and had consequently held the lives and 
fortunes of myriads of his countrymen in the palm 
of his hand. It is only necessary to add that at 
his death the people of Nanking went into public 
mourning, from which it may be inferred that, given 
the right material, Confucianism need be no hin- 
derance to an upright and unblemished career. 

One eminent Confucianist is still working for his 
cause, in a manner which compels the admira- 

14 



CONFUCIANISM 

tion of his opponents. Chang Chih-tung, Viceroy 
of the Two Hu, devotes much of the time which 
he can snatch from a busy hfe to the encourage- 
ment of Confucian learning. He has founded a 
college and a library for the benefit of poor stu- 
dents. He is a poor man himself, in spite of 
the high posts he has filled. He is master of a 
trenchant style, and has written against the opium 
habit and against the practice of cramping wom- 
en's feet. He is hostile to foreigners and to Chris- 
tianity, from the very natural desire to see his 
own countrymen and Confucianism paramount. 
Yet he is known to the general public as the one 
incorruptible viceroy. 

Manners and customs, convenient or incon- 
venient, if founded, as many of them are, upon 
the authority of the Confucian canon, remain 
fixed in the national life even more deeply than 
is found to be the case among Western peoples. 
The practice of employing a go-between in mar- 
riage, the illegality of marriages between persons 
of the same surname, the unwritten regulation 
that the axle-trees of all carts in the same district 
shall be of uniform length — these and many 
similar customs, fully in force at the present day, 
are based upon well-known passages to be found 
in different parts of the canon. Especially has 
the patriarchal system taken deep root, so deep, in 
fact, that, short of an entire upheaval, it is not 
easy to see how it can ever be eliminated from 
the social life of China, over which its domination 

15 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

is complete. Since the days of Confucius, with 
fihal piety as its foundation-stone, patriarchahsm 
has prevailed over the empire, the unit of civiliza- 
tion being not the individual, but the family. The 
father, and after his death the mother, has ab- 
solute power over all the children, until the sons 
enter upon an official career, when they can be 
reached only with the consent of the emperor, 
and imtil the daughters pass by marriage under 
the patria potestas of another family. At eighteen 
or nineteen the sons marry, and bring their wives 
under the paternal roof. The eldest brother suc- 
ceeds to the headship and responsibilities of the 
family, and the subordination of his younger 
brothers to him is only less marked than that of 
his children. 

Altogether the patriarchal system has many 
advantages. It knits close the family ties. All 
earnings or income go to a common fund; and 
individuals, in days of failure and distress, are 
not left to their own resources. Labor is thereby 
provided with a defence against capital, and a 
steady equilibrium is maintained. It is, no doubt, 
a check to individual enterprise, and a direct en- 
couragement to clannishness and its evils. On 
the other hand, it is equally an encouragement to 
morality and thrift. One thing is quite certain — 
either it is admirably adapted to the temper of 
the Chinese people or a long communion has 
adapted them to it. 

The Confucian temple, mentioned above, de- 

i6 



CONFUCIANISM 

serves particular notice, pla3ang as it does an im- 
portant part in what ma\^ be called, for the want 
of a better term, the state religion of China. Al- 
most since the death of Confucius himself, certain- 
ly since the second centur}^ B. C, there appears 
to have been some sort of shrine commemorative of 
his name and teachings. At the present moment 
there must be what is called a Confucian temple, 
distinguishable b3^ its red walls, in all cities above 
a certain rank throughout the empire. In those 
temples are ranged, in a particular order, a large 
number of tablets inscribed with the names of 
Confucius and of his disciples, of Mencius, and of 
various great men whose personal efforts have in 
past times contributed to keep alight the torch 
of Confucianism. Many tablets have, doubtless, 
slipped in which ought not to be there, and some 
names with indisputable claims have been ex- 
cluded ; but, altogether, the collection is fairly rep- 
resentative of the class intended, and may be re- 
garded as the literary Valhalla of China. Twice 
a year, in spring and in autumn, offerings of food 
and wine are set out before these tablets. Early 
in the morning the local officials, in full dress, 
assemble at the temples; musicians play, the 
officials burn incense and prostrate themselves 
before the tablet of Confucius, and a troupe of 
trained performers go through certain set move- 
ments, after the style of the tragedy dances of 
ancient Greece. The whole ceremony is com- 
memorative, not intercessory or propitiatory in 
B 17 



GREAt RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

any sense, no form of prayer being used. Yet it 
has been scouted by many missionaries as wor- 
ship, in the same way as the ceremonies com- 
memorative of ancestors have been scouted, with 
more justification, as ancestral worship. 

Every Chinese family possesses a shrine, be it 
only a shelf, where stand the wooden tablets of 
ancestors. Before these, incense is burned daily, 
with ceremonial prostrations. Twice a month, 
bowls of food are offered in addition. Once every 
year, at a certain date in spring, all respectable 
Chinamen make an effort to visit their ancestral 
burying-grounds. The spirit-path leading to the 
grave is swept ; the tomb itself is carefully dusted ; 
food and wine are offered up; and pieces of paper 
supposed to represent money are burned in large 
quantities. The food and wine are intended, in 
the opinion of the masses, for the spirits to eat and 
drink; and the fact that neither one nor the other 
is ever, to all appearances, touched, is explained 
by saying that the spirits consume only the fla- 
vor, leaving the grosser parts as they were. The 
money is supposed to pass through the agency of 
fire into the possession of the spirits for whom 
it is intended, and to be of actual use to them in 
their spiritual condition; but, to show that such 
superstitions have simply overlaid the earlier and 
purer element in the custom, it may be men- 
tioned that coined money was not known until 
nearly three centuries after the death of Con- 
fucius. The same test may be applied equally 

i8 



CONFUCIANISM 

with regard to geomancy, without the aid of which 
no site for a grave is ever finally chosen. 

What Confucius thought about even a simple 
commemorative ceremonial is difficult to gather 
from his shadowy utterances, such subjects being 
uncongenial to him. It is recorded of him that 
"he made his oblations as though the dead were 
present/' which need not be pressed to mean more 
than that his observance of the ceremonial was 
earnest rather than perfunctorj^. The general 
public, however, are inclined to interpret the words 
literally, and it is now customary to add a short 
prayer asking for the blessing of the departed 
upon all family undertakings. From the general 
spirit, however, of the teachings of Confucius, 
it seems clear that he would not have sanctioned 
superstitious rites. Offerings of food and wine, 
as may be seen from the Odes, were presented to 
departed spirits long before his time; and, at the 
utmost, he would be merely approving an already 
established system. The offerings themselves 
wxre probably regarded by him much as we re- 
gard offerings of wreaths and flowers at the tombs 
of departed relatives or heroes, scarcely as an ap- 
peal to the physical senses of the dead. 

The learned Jesuits of the seventeenth century, 
headed by Ricci, declared the ancestral worship 
of the Chinese to be nothing more than a civil rite, 
and in no way incompatible with the profession of 
the Christian faith; and had this declaration been 
allowed to stand, the probability is that the Catholic 

19 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

religion would now be the religion of China. The 
Jesuits were opposed, however, by the ignorant 
Dominicans; and, the question being referred to 
the pope, it was decided in favor of the latter. A 
great opportunity was thus missed. Some Prot- 
estant missionaries have been inclined to extend 
a degree of toleration to ancestral worship. Others 
have gone so far as to make it a rule to refuse bap- 
tism to responsible adults unless the ancestral 
tablets have been previously handed over. The 
importance of this cult at the present day may 
be gauged by an imperial edict, in which Li Hung 
Chang is instructed to desecrate and destroy the 
ancestral tombs of the fugitive reformer, Kang 
Yu-wei. 

Many learned Chinese have labored to show 
that the Three Teachings — meaning Buddhism, 
Taoism, and Confucianism — are in reality at one. 
Confucianism is now completely tolerant of the 
other two. Without public temples, and without 
a priesthood, it exists by virtue of its influence 
alone, while the teachings of the Buddhist and 
Taoist are amply supported by all the instrumental 
details which so much commend a religion to the 
masses. An important compromise has been 
affected, to which this happy tolerance is due. 
On every Buddhist and Taoist altar there stands, 
practically out of sight, hidden among candle- 
sticks, vases of flowers, and incense - burners, a 
small tablet, recording more by its presence than 
by its inscription, which is about the equivalent 

20 



CONFUCIANISM 

of "God save the Queen/' as something indepen- 
dent of all religious bias, political allegiance to 
his Majesty the Emperor. Confucianism asks 
for no more; it will not even permit any effigy or 
likeness of Confucius to be set up in any such 
place of worship. The exhibition of this tablet 
offers a fair comparison with the exhibition of 
the royal arms once so frequently seen on the 
tower arches of churches, but not now regarded as 
a necessary item in church decoration. Christian 
missionaries have not seen their w^ay to the same 
compromise. They have usually shown them- 
selves unduly sanguine as to some imaginary 
canker eating out the heart of Confucianism. In 
1 86 1 Dr. Legge wrote of Confucius as follows: 
''His influence has been wonderful, but it will 
henceforth wane. My opinion is, that the faith 
of the nation in him will speedily and extensively 
pass away.'' Forty years have passed since these 
words were penned, yet the hold of his wonderful 
influence seems to-day as strong as ever. And 
this in spite of the fact that, as has been shown 
above, little or nothing has been done by the em- 
perors of the nineteenth century to stimulate zeal 
in the cause. 

Those missionaries have done well who have 
recognized the depth and strength of this influence. 
At the missionary conference in 1877, Dr. Edkins 
used these words : 

" Confucianism is the citadel of the enemy, raising its 
battlements high into the clouds and manned by multitudes 

21 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

who are animated by a belief in their superiority and their 
invincible strength. The taking of this fortress is the con- 
clusion of the war." 

The late Dr. Carstairs Douglas, a high author- 
ity, also said that he thought 

"Confucianism a far greater enemy to Christianity than 
Buddhism or Taoism, just as Mohammedanism in India and 
Africa is a greater enemy than heathenism; in each case 
for the same reason, because of the large amount of truth it 
contained. Missionaries ought to study Confucianism care- 
fully, and thankfully use all that is good in it, pointing out 
its great deficiencies and wisely correcting its errors." 

The late Dr. Faber reduced the chief of these 
errors to twenty-four in number, exception to some 
of which might possibly be taken by differently 
constituted minds — e. g., ''the assertion that cer- 
tain musical melodies influence the morals of the 
people is absurd.'' 

In 1877 Dr. Legge stated that the impression 
left on him b3^ Confucianism was as follows : 

" With very much that is good in it, it still is rather hum- 
drum and inadequate to the requirements of our humanity, 
a bed shorter than that upon which a man can stretch him- 
self, and a covering narrower than that in which he can 
wrap himself." 

The Rev. A. Smith, author of Chinese Charac- 
teristics, says: 

" It is acknowledged that there is in Confucianism much 
that is excellent concerning the relations of man, and many 
points in which the doctrines of Christian revelation are 
almost echoed," 

ZZ 



CONFUCIANISM 

If such be the case, it would seem that the sooner 
missionaries devote themselves to a close study of 
Confucian doctrines; the better. This view pre- 
vails now much more widely than a few years 
ago. In the preface to his Les Quatre Livres, 
1895, Pere Couvreur, S. J., declares that: 

" L' etude de la litterature est particulierement recommandee 
aux missionaires , pour attirer les infideles et les preparer h 
recevoir les enseignements Chretiens." 

Mr. Teitaro Suzuki has recently given similar 
testimony, without reference to Christianity : 

" In Confucius and his doctrine are solidly crystallized the 
essence and the ideal of the Chinese people. When we un- 
derstand Confucius, we understand the Chinese." 

It is difficult, however, to see what real fusion 
can be brought about of Christianity w^ith Con- 
fucianism. We are confronted, on the threshold 
of the latter, by the dogma that man is born good, 
and that his lapse into evil is wholly due to his 
environment. Here Christianity would find a com- 
promise impossible. It has scarcely the accom- 
modating breadth of Buddhism, which established 
itself in Japan in the sixth century A. D., not by 
denouncing the false gods of the Japanese, but by 
promptly canonizing all the Shinto ancestor-gods 
as Bodhisatvas, second only to Buddha him- 
self. But it might be possible to take a hint from 
Pope Gregory, who in A. D. 601 addressed a 
letter to the Abbot Mellitus, then starting for 

23 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

England, pointing out that the temples of the 
English ought not to be destroyed, but rather 
''converted from the worship of devils to the ser- 
vice of the true God, that the nation . . . may 
the more familiarly resort to the places to which 
they have been accustomed/' The old sacrifices 
were also to be retained in form, '' to the end that, 
while some gratifications are outwardly permit- 
ted them, they may the more easily consent to 
the inward consolations of the grace of God/' 
Dr. Legge wrote, in 1877 : 

" Christianity cannot be tacked on to any heathen re- 
hgion as its complement, nor can it absorb any into itself 
without great changes in it and additions to it. Missionaries 
have not merely to reform, though it will be well for them 
to reform where and what they can ; they have to revolution- 
ize ; and, as no revolution of a political kind can be effected 
without disturbance of existing conditions, so neither can a 
revolution of a people's religion be brought about without 
heat and excitement. Confucianism is not antagonistic to 
Christianity, as Buddhism and Brahmanism are. It is not 
atheistic like the former, nor pantheistic like the latter. It is, 
however, a system whose issues are bounded by earth and by 
time ; and, though missionaries try to acknowledge what is 
good in it, and to use it as not abusing it, they cannot avoid 
sometimes seeming to pull down Confucius from his eleva- 
tion. They cannot set forth the gospel as the wisdom of 
God and the power of God unto salvation, and exhort to the 
supreme love of God and of Christ, without deploring the 
want of any deep sense of sin, and of any glow of piety in the 
followers of the Chinese sage. Let them seek to go about 
their work everywhere — and I believe they can do so more 
easily in China than in other mission fields — in the spirit 

^ 



CONFUCIANISM 

of Christ, without striving or crying, with meekness and 
lowliness of heart. Let no one think any labor too great to 
make himself familiar with the Confucian books. So shall 
missionaries in China come fully to understand the work 
they have to do ; and the more they avoid driving their car- 
riages rudely over the master's grave, the more likely are 
they soon to see Jesus enthroned in his room in the hearts of 
the people." 

The Rev. A. Smith would carry the crusade to 
extremes. Summing up his fascinating, though 
one-sided, volume above quoted, he says : 

" The manifold needs of China we find, then, to be a single 
imperative need. It will be met permanently, completely, 
only by Christian civilization." 

Forty years ago the '' manifold needs " of Japan 
were prett}^ much what those of China are at the 
present day. All those needs, save one, have 
been supplied; and Japan now takes an impor- 
tant rank among the nations of the world. She 
has little or no religion, and does not seem to wish 
to have any more. Her ethical code, upon which 
the morals of her people are based, is a legacy 
from the days when every educated Japanese was 
a Confucianist. It is a practical, workaday code, 
setting forth a not unattainable ideal. It teaches 
virtue for virtue's own sake, and can no more be 
held responsible for the evils which flourish in 
China than Christianity can be held responsible 
for the evils which flourish in England. Yet this 

2§ 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

is overlooked to a wide extent. Dr. Legge traced 
the lying habits of the Chinese directly to the 
example of Confucius himself, on the strength of 
three passages, one of which occurs in an admit- 
tedly spurious work. In the first, Confucius ap- 
plauds the modesty of an officer, who, after boldly 
bringing up the rear on the occasion of a retreat, 
refused all praise for his gallant behavior, at- 
tributing his position rather to the slowness of 
his horse. In the second, an unwelcome visitor 
calling on Confucius, the master sent out to say he 
was sick, at the same time seizing his harpsichord 
and singing to it, "in order that Pei might hear 
him.'' Dr. Legge lays no stress on the last half 
of this story, though it is impossible to believe 
that its meaning can have escaped his notice al- 
together. Lastly, when Confucius was once taken 
prisoner by the rebels, he was released on con- 
dition of not proceeding to Wei. ''Thither, not- 
withstanding, he continued his route,'' and when 
asked by a disciple whether it was right to violate 
his oath, he replied : '' It was a forced oath. The 
spirits do not hear such." 

It seems almost to be now recognized that the 
time has come for giving up frontal attacks upon 
Confucianism. Apart from ancestral worship and 
the dogma that man is born in righteousness, 
there is really very little to attack, and the onset 
would be better diverted in the direction of Bud- 
dhism and Taoism. The cardinal virtues which 
are most admired by Christians are fully inculcated 

26 



CONFUCIANISM 

in the Confucian canon, and the general practice 
of these is certainly up to the average standard 
exhibited by foreign nations. When the first 
Chinese ambassador to England, Kuo Sung-tao, 
was leaving England for home, he said plain- 
ly that while in material civilization we were far 
ahead of China, our national morality was nothing 
less than shocking. It must, indeed, seem strange 
to a Confucianist that, with all our boasted influ- 
ences of Christianity, it should still be neces- 
sary, for instance, to organize a Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the ill-treat- 
ment of children being quite unknown in China. 
Female infanticide has, indeed, been charged upon 
Confucianism, but the glaring absurdity of such 
a charge can be made manifest in a few words. It 
is possible actually to prove a negative, and show 
that extensive infanticide cannot be practised in 
China. Ever}^ Chinaman throughout the empire, 
with the very rarest exceptions, marries young. 
If his wife dies, he marries again; it is not 
thought proper for widows to remarry, though 
some do so. Many well-to-do Chinamen take con- 
cubines; some two, three, and even four. There- 
fore, unless there is an enormous disparity in the 
numbers of boys and girls born, infanticide must 
be reduced to very narrow limits. Yet, as late 
as May, 1897, Mrs. Isabella Bishop said, at a 
meeting of the Zenana Missionary Society, that 
"of eleven Bible-women whom she had seen at a 
meeting in China, there was not one that had not 

27 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

put an end to at least five girl-babies/' It is a 
work of supererogation to add that few China- 
women bear five children. 

Buddhism, which may once have been a religion 
of pure and lofty conceptions, is now, as seen in 
China, nothing more than a collection of degrad- 
ing superstitions, entirely beneath the notice of an 
educated Confucianist. Its tonsured priests are 
despised and ridiculed by the people, who openly 
speak of them as ''bald-headed asvses/' Taoism, 
once a subtle system of philosophy, has been de- 
based in like manner. It has borrowed some of 
the worst features of Buddhism, which has in 
turn appropriated several of the absurdities of 
Taoism. The two, after centuries of rivalry, have 
long since flourished peacefully side by side. 

With all its merits, Confucianism is seriously 
wanting in attractiveness to the masses, who really 
know very little about it. It is a system for the 
philosopher in his study, not for the peasant at the 
plough-tail. It offers no consolations of any kind, 
save those to be derived from a consciousness of 
having done one's duty. The masses, who respect 
learning and authority above all things, accept 
Confucianism as the criterion of a perfect life. 
They daily perform the ceremonies of ancestral 
worship in all loyalty of heart, and then go off 
and satisfy other cravings by the practice of the 
rites and ceremonies of Buddhism and Taoism, 
which have so much more to offer by way of re- 
ward. Still, wherever Chinamen go they carry 

2§ 



CONFUCIANISM 

with them in their hearts the two leading features 
of Confucianism, the patriarchal system and an- 
cestral worship. 

During the past century, the sphere of Con- 
fucian influence has been enormously widened. 
Not to mention increase of population within the 
boundaries of China proper, there has been ex- 
tension and consolidation in Turkestan, or the 
New Dominion, won by the victorious arms of 
Tso Tsung-tang in his campaigns of 1871-1878. 
Emigration, which was almost unknown in 1800, 
is in 1900 an e very-day detail at the ports of south- 
ern China. 

According to the favorite Chinese theory of 
''fulness and decay,'' it would only be expected 
that, after such a period of prosperity as was wit- 
nessed in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, the doctrine should suffer a temporary 
eclipse. Still, if this century has not been actually 
propitious to the peaceful development of Con- 
fucianism, opposition to Christianity has cer- 
tainly proved a great stimulus, calling forth its 
worst features instead of its best — militant feat- 
ures of bigotry and fanaticism, of which Con- 
fucius, whose daily texts were reciprocity and 
forbearance, would have been the last to approve. 
Of this school, Chou Han, the fiend who excites 
villagers to murder peaceable missionaries, their 
wives and children, is the great living exemplar. 
Yet he, like the arch-fiend, should get his due. 
His own creed has often been attacked in a manner 

29 



CRSAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the reverse of tactful, well calculated to goad even 
the mildest-mannered Confucianist to fury. 

If Buddhism and Taoism could be displaced 
by Christianity, and Confucianism be recognized 
in its true sense as a pure cult of virtue, with com- 
memorative ceremonies in honor of its founder 
and of family ancestors who have gone before, 
one great barrier between ourselves and the Chinese 
would be broken down forever. 

Herbert Allen Giles. 



BUDDHA 

Sakya-muni, Sarvarthasiddha, or, in the more common form, 
Buddha, founder of the religion named after him, was bom, ac- 
cording to some authorities, in Africa, and, according to equally 
learned ones, in India. There has been much speculation on this 
point in an effort to determine whether Buddhism was of African 
or Indian origin. Advocates of the former opinion call attention 
to the curled or woolly appearance of the hair on the statues of 
Buddha, while those holding the opposite opinion claim that his 
gold-colored complexion and his prominent aquiline nose disprove 
his African descent. 

The latter also go further and not only fix the date of his birth 
variously as in the reign of Tshao-Wang, of the dynasty of Tsheu, 
or about 1029 B.C., and also about 622 B.C., but record incidents 
in his career indicating a greater familiarity with their subject, 
however legendary the "records" may be. Thus, we are informed 
that his father was the ruler of the ancient Hindu kingdom of 
Kapilavastu, at the foot of the Nepalese Mountains, about one 
hundred miles north of Benares, and that within a few days after 
his birth, according to custom, he was presented before the image 
of a deity, which inclined its head toward him as a presage of 
future greatness. 

When the lad was ten years of age he was placed in the care of 
a spiritual instructor, under whom he developed "mental facul- 
ties of the first order," and became equally distinguished by his 
rare personal beauty. In the Ceylonese account of his life it is 
said that at the age of twenty he married "a noble virgin," by 
whom he had a son and a daughter. 

About this time he began to apply himself to investigations into 
the miseries and depravities of mankind, and became so depressed 
with the conditions of his environment that he announced his 
intention of retiring from the world and becoming a hermit. 
Despite the efforts of his father to prevent him, he escaped from 
the guards set to watch his movements, and settled himself on 



BUDDHA 

the banks of a river in the Kingdom of Udifa, called in Mongol 
history Arnasara or Narasara. Here he dwelt for six years, and 
then returned to the world and began his career as a religious 
teacher at Warnashi or Varanasi, the modern Benares. 

For a time he was regarded with keen suspicion, and the sound- 
ness of his mind was even questioned; but his doctrines later 
touched a responsive cord and he lived to see them accepted in 
almost every part of India. After forty-five years spent in sacer- 
dotal functions, he died in his eightieth year, in 950 B.C., 543 B.C., 
477 B.C., or 400 B.C., according to different authorities. 

Before his death he interested his chief disciple, Mahakaya, a 
Brahmin of the Kingdom of Makata, which lay in the center of 
India, with his secret doctrines. This Mahakaya thus became 
the first patriarch of Buddhism, and he left the high office to Anata. 
There is extant a list, now generally discredited, of thirty- three 
patriarchs, including Mahakaya, in chronological succession, each 
of whom was said to have chosen his successor and to have trans- 
mitted to him the doctrines of the founder. The twenty-eighth, 
Bodhidhorma, who died in China in a.d. 495, was said to be the last 
who lived in Hindustan. He transmitted the secret doctrines to 
the twenty-ninth patriarch, a Chinese, after, whom came four 
other Chinese patriarchs, the last dying in A.D. 713. From the 
Indian patriarch of a.d. 706 originated the sacerdotal dignity 
long common in China and among the Mongols, known as "the 
spiritual prince of the law." 

Buddhists in India, according to the census of 1901, number 
9,476,700, principally in Burma. In China the bulk of the people 
are of this faith. In Japan Buddhism ranks second among the 
chief forms of religion, and is there divided into twelve sects, pos- 
sessing in all thirty-three different creeds. In Siam it is the pre- 
vailing religion, and in the whole country there are some 13,000 
temples, over 93,000 priests, and over 157,000 students for ser- 
vice in the temples. In 1905 Russia was credited with 433,863 
followers of the faith. The prevailing form of religion in Tibet 
is a corruption of Buddhism, there known as Lamaism. 



BUDDHISM 



The contrast between the rapidity with which 
Buddhism, in the early centuries of its history, 
spread over all adjoining lands, and its apparent 
inertness in these later centuries is very striking. 
We are only just beginning to gather the facts as 
to its original progress. And modern Buddhists 
are not in the habit of making any parade of their 
intentions, or even of their hopes. Any attempt, 
therefore, to explain this contrast, or to form a 
judgment as to whether it is likely, or not, to be 
permanent is beset with difficulty, and must be 
subject to revision. 

It will not be without interest, however, to state 
shortly what is at present known on the matter, 
and to refer to some of those points which will be 
important, or at least suggestive, in any ultimate 
decision. 

There are, of course, no statistics available as to 
the number of the adherents of the reforming 
movement in the early days of Buddhism. But 
the ground had been well prepared. Gotama, the 
Buddha, was careful in all his discourses to build 
on foundations already laid. He not only claimed 
C 33 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

to be, but in fact was, for the most part, a teacher 
who took up and emphasized the best teaching 
of the past. On certain points only were his doc- 
trines new. The most important and far-reach- 
ing of these points was his ignoring the then uni- 
versally accepted theory of a soul; that is, of a 
vague and subtle, but real and material, entity 
supposed to reside during life within the body, 
and to fly out, at death, usually through a hole at 
the top of the head, to continue its existence, as a 
separate and conscious individual, elsewhere. We 
know for certain that this position, the refusal to 
use this hypothesis, was, among Indian thinkers, 
peculiar to Buddhism. 

On other points we must still be content to re- 
serve our judgment. The Buddha, for instance, 
is sometimes said to have abolished caste. But 
we are entirely unwarranted in supposing the 
system we now call the caste system to have exist- 
ed in its present form when Buddha arose, in the 
sixth century before Christ, in the valley of the 
Ganges. On the contrary, the key-stone of the arch 
of the peculiarly Indian caste organization — the 
absolute supremacy of the Brahmins — had not 
yet been put in position, had not, in fact, been 
made ready. And in many other details the 
caste system did not yet exist. It was only in 
process of evolution. In face of these conditions, 
the Buddha's doctrine was necessarily twofold. 
Within his own order, over which alone he had 
complete control, he ignored completely and ab- 

34 



BUDDHISM 

solutely all advantages or disadvantages arising 
from birth, occupation, or social status, and swept 
awa}^ all barriers and disabilities arising from the 
arbitrary rules of mere ceremonial or social im- 
purity. Now, we know there had existed orders 
before Gotama founded his. But their records 
are at present available only in so fragmentary 
a state that we do not yet know whether any of 
them had taken a similar step before. 

On the other hand, outside his own order, the 
Buddha adopted, as regards what we now fairly 
call "questions of caste,'' the only course then 
open to any man of sense — that is to say, he strove 
to influence public opinion (on which such ob- 
servances depend) by a constant inculcation of 
reasonable views. Thus, in the Amagandha Sut- 
ta it is laid down, in eloquent words, that defile- 
ment does not come from eating this or that, pre- 
pared or given by this or that person, but from 
folly in deed or word or thought. And here the 
very document itself, in giving the doctrine, gives 
it as the word of an Awakened One (a Buddha) 
of old. In other words, the Buddhist records put 
forward this view as having been enunciated 
long before, with the intended implication that it 
was common ground to the wise. 

This is only one example out of many. The 
Buddhist doctrines that salvation from suffering, 
from mere quantitative existence indefinitely pro- 
longed, depended on the choice of a right ideal; 
that goodness was a function of intelligence; that 

35 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the sacrifice of the heart was better than a sacrifice 
of bullocks ; that the ideal of man was to be sought, 
not in birth or wealth or rank, but in wisdom and 
goodness; that the habitual practice of the rapt- 
ure of deep reverie was a useful means of ethical 
training, of acquiring that intellectual insight 
on which self-culture depends ; a great part of the 
theory of the origin of evil; a great part of the 
theory of Karma; the fundamental doctrine of the 
impermanency of all phenomena ; the spirit of 
unquestioning toleration in all matters of religion 
and speculation — all these, and others besides, were 
pre-Buddhistic, and were widely held when Bud- 
dhism arose. Even the doctrine that salvation 
can be obtained in this life was pre-Buddhistic. 
The Buddha merely added that it could only be 
enjoyed in this life, that there was no salvation 
at all beyond the grave. 

There was no organized church to attack. It 
was taken as granted, indeed, that the knowledge 
of the magic, the mystery, of sacrifice was confined 
to Brahmins, but the majority of the Brahmins, 
then as now, followed other pursuits. They were 
land-owners, officials, even traders. Many of them 
openly adopted, more of them were in favor of, the 
new school. And the new school itself was no or- 
ganized body. No one, unless he actually became 
a member of Gotama's order, as a considerable num- 
ber of Brahmins actually did, had to make any break 
in his life, had to lose any social consideration, by 
following, in whole or in part, the party of reform. 

36 



BUDDHISM 

The economic conditions were peculiarly favor- 
able. And there was present a factor almost in- 
dispensable to any new movement of religious 
reform — the existence side by side of widely dif- 
fering views of life. Just as our Reformation 
in Europe was largely due to the influence on 
Christian minds of the newly discovered pagan 
literature of Greece, so in India, in the sixth cen- 
tury before Christ, the Aryans were in contact 
with views of life fundamentally different from 
their own. It is a great mistake to imagine that 
the invading Aryans found only savages in the 
land. The Dravidian civilization was not in- 
ferior to, though it was, no doubt, in many re- 
spects, different from, that of the Aryans them- 
selves. There was probably never a time in the 
history of the world, either before or since, when 
so large a proportion of all classes of the people 
over so extensive a country were possessed by 
so earnest a spirit of inquiry, of speculation, of 
interest in religious questions, by so impartial 
and deep a respect for all who posed as teachers 
of the truth. And there is no doubt about the 
enthusiasm of the new converts, though it was 
an enthusiasm of a peculiar kind. Almost all 
w^ere filled with an overpowering reverence and 
love for their great teacher. Many had experi- 
enced, and would never forget, the bliss, the rapt- 
ure of the moments of insight, of emancipation, of 
elevation when they realized, in their systematic 
practice of the reveries of Jhana, the imperma- 

37 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

nence of all phenomena. The related episodes reveal 
a calm confidence arising from the sense of self- 
mastery won, a keen intellectual pleasure in what 
seemed to them to be a final solution of the deepest 
problems of life, a longing sympathy with those 
blinded by folly and error. And the last of these 
feelings they were wont to cultivate especially by 
one of their systematic meditations. 

Such are some of the considerations that help 
us to understand the original spread of Buddhism. 
Those who have found it difficult to reconcile the 
undoubted fact of that spread with their view of 
Buddhism as the apotheosis of annihilation, mean- 
ing thereby the annihilation of the soul, are wrong 
only in the latter half of their contention. As is 
now well know^n. Nirvana does not mean the an- 
nihilation of the soul — the Buddhists did not ac- 
cept the hypothesis of a soul — but the dying out, 
in the heart, of the three fell fires of lust, ill-will, 
and delusion. A doctrine of salvation to be gain- 
ed, and gained now, by self-mastery, by a gradual 
inward perfection, may have been very different 
from modern Western ideas, but was quite com- 
patible with the necessary enthusiasm, and ap- 
pealed strongly to the aspirations of the day. 

What we know is that the success of the new 
doctrine was, in the first centuries, sufficiently 
marked. Its extent may be gauged by the ac- 
count of the formal sending forth of missionaries 
at the close of Asoka's Council, held at Patna in 
the third century before Christ. They were sent 

38 



BUDDHISM 

to Sind, to Afghanistan, to Kashmir, to Tibet and 
Nepal, to the coasts of Burma, to the Dekkan, 
to Ceylon. In other words, missionaries were no 
longer needed in the vast extent of territory from 
the Indus to the Gulf of Bengal, from the Hima- 
layas to the Godavari River. And in the follow- 
ing centuries Buddhism had spread west to the 
Oxus, north to Mongolia, east to China, Korea, and 
Japan, and south to Siam and to Java and to oth- 
er islands of the far Southeastern Archipelago. 

Then came the decline. Outside India, no fur- 
ther progress was made. In India itself the force 
of the new movement gradually fell away, until 
Buddhism, like Christianity, became almost un- 
known, even in the very land of its birth. 

What were the reasons for this? Chiefly, no 
doubt, of two kinds — internal weakness and a 
notable increase in the power of opposing con- 
ditions. The very event which, in the eyes of the 
world, seemed to be the most striking proof of the 
success of the reforming party, the conversion and 
strenuous support of Asoka, the most powerful 
ruler India had had — indeed, the first real over- 
lord over practically the whole of India proper — 
was only the beginning of the end. The adhesion 
of large numbers of onh^ nominal converts pro- 
duced weakness rather than strength. The day 
of compromise had come. Every relaxation of 
the old thorough - going position was heartily 
welcomed and widely supported by converts only 
half converted. The margin of difference between 

39 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the Buddhists and their most formidable opponents 
faded gradually, almost entirely, away. The soul- 
theory, step by step, regained the upper hand. 
Caste distinctions were, little by little, built up into 
a completely organized system. The social suprem- 
acy of the Brahmins by birth became accepted 
everywhere as an incontrovertible fact. But the 
flood of popular superstition which overwhelmed 
the Buddhist movement overwhelmed also the 
whole pantheon of the Vedic gods. Buddhism and 
Brahminism practically gave place to modern 
Hinduism. 

We ought not, in fact, to be surprised that a theory 
which placed the ideal in self -conquest ; regarded final 
salvation as obtainable in this world only, and only 
by self -culture ; a view of life that ignored the '' soul," 
and brought the very gods under the domain of law; 
a religion which aimed its keenest shafts against 
just those forms of belief in the supernatural that 
appeal most strongly alike to the hopes and the fears 
of the people; a philosophy based on experience, 
confining itself to going back, step by step, from 
effect to cause, and pouring scorn on speculations 
as to the ultimate origin, or end of things — we ought 
not to be surprised that such a system stumbled and 
fell. It might gain, by the powerful personality 
of its founders, by the first enthusiasm, the zeal and 
the intelligence of his followers, a certain measure 
of temporary success. But it fought against too 
many vested interests at once, it raised up too many 
enemies, it tried, in ''pouring new wine into old 

40 



BUDDHISM 

bottles/' to retain too much of the ancient phrase- 
ology for lasting success. It was before its time. The 
end was inevitable. And the end was brought about, 
not by persecution, but by the gradual weakening 
of the theory itself, the gradual creeping back under 
new forms and new names of the more popular be- 
liefs. 

In almost the words the present writer ventured 
to use, nearly twenty 3"ears ago, " It would be, per- 
haps, hard to find, in the whole history of the world, 
a greater tragedy than that typified by the feast of 
Juggernauth. The number of deaths at the fes- 
tival has doubtless been sometimes exaggerated, and 
I am quite aware that reasons can be given for the 
character of the carvings on the triumphal car of 
Vishnu. But it is acknowledged that the temple 
at Puri had once been Buddhist, that caste is ignored 
during the festival, and that the very name of the 
idol is really nothing but a misunderstood ancient 
epithet — the Pali word ' Jagan-natha ' (Lord of the 
World) — of the great thinker and reformer of India. 
We know that deaths did, in fact, and up to very re- 
cent times, take place, and were supposed to secure 
a happy entrance of the 'soul' into realms of de- 
light in heaven. When we call to mind how the 
frenzied multitudes, drunk with the luscious poison 
of delusions, from which the reformation they had re- 
jected might have saved them, dragged on that sacred 
car, hea\^ and hideous with carvings of obscenity 
and cruelty — dragged it on in the very name of 
Jagan-natha, the forgotten teacher of self-control, of 

41 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

enlightenment, and of universal love, while it creaked 
and crushed over the bodies of miserable suicides, 
the victims of once-exploded superstitions — it will 
help us to realize how heavy is the hand of the im- 
measurable past ; how much more powerful than the 
voice of the prophets is the influence of congenial fan- 
cies and of inherited beliefs/' 

And now? Is there any probability of the re- 
vival of Buddhism? Has it force enough, has it 
any force to stand up against the altered condi- 
tions of the world? Beaten back by the fire and 
sword of a fierce Mohammedanism from Khiva and 
Bokhara, from Afghanistan and Baluchistan, from 
Sind and from the Panjab, will it regain there the 
lost territory, and restore the beautiful monuments 
so ruthlessly destroyed? It was the same gentle 
hands that gave the coup de grace to Buddhism in 
the valley of the Ganges. The great university of 
Nalanda still existed, as the chief if not the only 
centre of unsectarian religious life in India, when 
the Moslems came. 

They murdered the teachers and burned the books, 
and, without any military necessity that is now 
perceptible, destroyed the buildings. Can Buddhism 
recover there the ground it had previously lost by 
its own failings, and rebuild the great university 
now buried in heaps of ruin and covered with jungle? 
Can it recover its lost influence in China and Japan, 
where it was for a short time the dominant faith, and 
is now despised, again through its own weakness, 
by the official and ruling classes who once professed 

42 



BUDDHISM 

it? Is there any probabilitj^ of its once again send- 
ing out its missionaries into distant lands, and gain- 
ing over new regions to its strong gospel of self-vic- 
tory by self-abnegation? 

The answer, so far as it can be given at all, -can 
only be given in the light of the history of the past. 
In so far as it shall be able to purify itself by an in- 
telligent approximation, indeed, by a practical re- 
turn, to the teaching of the master, there is hope 
for it. Its most powerful weapon, now as then, 
must always be the Four Truths, the Noble Path in 
which they culminate, the doctrine of Arahatship 
to which that path leads up. It is by no means sure 
that Buddhists throughout the world have as yet 
fully and consciously reached this position. But 
some approach, at least, to it is being brought about 
by two causes especially. And these are both due, 
oddly enough, to European and American agency 
— they are the influence of Christian propagandists 
and of European and American scholars. 

One result of the first has been, and especially in 
those countries where it has been most vigorously 
carried on, to compel the Buddhists to examine their 
grounds of belief, and, with that object, to study 
more carefully their ancient literature. We see, 
therefore, throughout the Buddhist world an en- 
thusiasm reawakening for education, both primary 
and secondary, to be conducted on their own lines. 
Books in manuscript, on the time -honored palm- 
leaves, had been deemed enough when their position 
was not attacked. Now they are printing and cir- 

43 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

culating their books, as the Christians do; they are 
founding schools for both sexes; they are estabhsh- 
ing boards of education, even high schools and col- 
leges; and their sacred books, no longer left only 
in the hands of student recluses, are printed and 
circulated at large. Fas est et ah hoste doceri. 

On the other hand, the labors of European and 
American scholars are making accessible, also on 
this side, the ancient texts, and are even beginning 
to translate them into European languages, and to 
analyze and summarize their contents. Though 
the Buddhists do not in the least agree with us, 
whose aim is not controversial at all, but only his- 
torical, they are beginning not only to make such 
use as suits them of our results, but to imitate our 
methods. 

It may be desirable to specify, with regard to each 
country — for Buddhism is still an influence over 
widely separated portions of the globe, and the 
present position is different in each — how far such 
movements have gone. In Japan, split up as Bud- 
dhism is into many sects, of which Mr. Fujish Ma 
has given us so interesting an account,* the very 
difference of opinion has led to one sect vying with 
the other in propagandist education. Several of 
them have even sent students over to Europe for 
the express purpose of learning Pali and Sanscrit 
— a most striking phenomenon of the time. And 
one or two of these students, thus trained in European 

* Le Bouddhisme japonais ; doctrines et histoire des douze grandes 
sectes du Bouddhisme du Japon. Paris, 1889 

44 



BUDDHISM 

knowledge, notablj^ the gentleman already referred 
to, and Mr. Bunyu Nanjio, and, last (not least), Mr. 
Takakusu, have, by their published works, added 
not only to native, but to European knowledge. A 
very excellently conducted periodical, now called 
The Orient, gives also able expression, in English, 
to the general Buddhist view of things, and publishes 
English versions of the texts held in most repute. 
In the face of the increased importance which recent 
events have given to the military caste in Japan, a 
caste devoted almost exclusively to the ancient 
paganism, the Shinto faith of their ancestors, this 
activity and zeal of the Buddhists is noteworthy. 

In China, in this as in other respects, all is silent; 
or, if there be any movement, we know nothing of it. 
Buddhism there has alw^ays, in spite of a few in- 
tervals of royal favor, had a hard fight against 
Confucianism; and it lies at present, mostly from 
internal causes, under a cloud. But it still has a 
large following among the masses, and even, though 
they often prefer to conceal the fact, among the 
w^ealthier classes; and any revival of Chinese na- 
tional feeling will have its effect also on the Bud- 
dhist communities. 

In Siam, on the other hand, the Buddhist ad- 
vance has the able and efficient support of the 
ruling family. In emulation, no doubt, and in 
some respects in imitation, of the Pali Text Society, 
the work of European scholars, the Buddhist 
scholars of Siam — for scholarship has never died 
out there — have brought out, at the expense and 

45 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

under the patronage of their present enUghtened 
monarch, and under the superintendence of his 
brother, the distinguished scholar and member of 
the Buddhist Order, Prince Vajira-nana, a most ad- 
mirable and now nearly complete edition of the 
whole of their ancient sacred books, and are be- 
ginning, under the same auspices, an edition of 
the numerous commentaries — all in Pali, of course, 
but printed, not in the Pali, but in the ordinary 
Siamese, characters. 

In Ceylon, the Buddhists — not without help, 
be it noted, from American sympathizers — have 
started new schools, both for boys and girls. They 
have also inaugurated colleges for the higher 
education of the Buddhist clergy. And more than 
one of these colleges, notably in Colombo, under 
the able superintendence of the distinguished 
scholar Sumangala Maha Nayaka, who is an 
Honorary Member of the Royal Asiatic Society 
of England, have produced scholars and organizers 
who are fully awake to all the necessities of the 
times. There is a paper there, too. The Buddhist, 
which does for Ceylon what The Orient does for 
Japan; and a native paper, written in Singalese, 
the Sava Sanda Rasa, which is even more impor- 
tant, and has a large and influential circulation. 

In India, an organization has been set on foot 
in Calcutta for the propagation of Buddhist opinion. 
This owed its commencement to the agency of 
Ceylon Buddhists, and is at present very ably 
presided over by a Ceylonese well known in Europe 

46 



BUDDHISM 

and America, Mr. Dharmapala. But it has re- 
ceived the adhesion and support of influential na- 
tives of India. Some of them contribute arti- 
cles to its journal, the Journal of the Alalia Bodhi 
Society, and others have gone to Ceylon to study 
Buddhism there. A principal object of the as- 
sociation, to obtain possession of the ancient Maha 
Bodhi temple, erected on the site of the spot where 
the Buddha obtained Nirvana, has not at present 
been successful. But the organization is full of 
life and aspiration, and it seems by no means im- 
probable that it will succeed in spreading to a con- 
siderable extent once more in India the faith of the 
greatest teacher and thinker that India has yet 
produced. 

In Burma Buddhism is at present quieter. Per- 
haps it is that the Buddhists there feel less than 
elsewhere the pressure of opposing forces. As 
Mr. Fielding has shown in that enchanting vol- 
ume, The Soul of a People, Buddhism is in Bur- 
ma a power, and a power on the whole for good, 
influencing the lives of the people from the cradle 
to the grave. And though quiet, it is not quiescent. 
The press issues an increasing number of Bud- 
dhist texts, old and new. And though the Bud- 
dhist peasantry have not yet, from financial causes, 
succeeded in publishing the whole of the authori- 
tative texts of their religion, the texts they do pub- 
lish have a wide circulation and are held in high 
honor by the people. 

There is yet another point which it would be 
47 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

blindness to omit in any estimate of the position 
of Buddhism as a Hving force — it is not at all im- 
probable that it may turn out, eventually, to be the 
most important point of all — the quiet but irresist- 
ible way in which Buddhism is making its in- 
fluence felt, quite apart from any religious prop- 
aganda, in the thought of the West. What 
Schopenhauer said has often been quoted, but 
will bear quoting again: ''If I am to take the 
results of my own philosophy as the standard of 
truth, I should be obliged to concede to Buddhism 
the pre-eminence over the rest. In any case, it must 
be a satisfaction to me to find my teaching in such 
agreement with a religion professed by the ma- 
jority of men.'' This would be neither the place 
nor the time to undertake any discussion of this 
utterance. It is enough to point out that Scho- 
penhauer is, in all probability, the most influential 
philosopher among those now followed in Ger- 
many; and that the influence of Germany, at all 
events in intellectual matters, is at present, if not 
indeed in the ascendant, at least exceedingly power- 
ful. It is not probable that an}^ considerable 
number of people, either in Europe or America, 
will ever range themselves openly on the side of 
Buddhism as a profession of faith. But it cannot 
be denied that there are certain points in the Bud- 
dhist view of life that are likely to influence, and to 
influence widely, with increasing intensity, the 
views of life, of philosophy, of ethics, as held now 
in the West. And not only the view of life, the 

48 



BUDDHISM 

method also, the system of self-training in ethi- 
cal culture, has certain points which the practical 
Western mind is not likely, when it comes to know 
it, to ignore. The present results have, been 
brought about by the knowledge of Buddhism pro- 
fessed by a few isolated students. It is only when 
the texts have been properly edited, fully translated, 
so studied and summarized that they have been 
made accessible to every one interested in questions 
of philosophy and ethics, that the full power of 
such truth as there is in the Buddhist theory will 
be felt. 

It cannot be considered as at all improbable that 
the twentieth century will see a movement of ideas 
not unlike in importance to that resulting from 
the discovery of Greek thought at the time of the 
Renaissance, and due, like it, to the meeting to- 
gether in men's minds of two fundamentally dif- 
ferent interpretations of the deepest problems man 
has to face. 

T. W. Rhys Davids. 

D 



MOHAMMED 



The founder of Islamism was born in the city of Mecca, Arabia, 
November lo, a.d. 570, or April 21, 571, according to different 
authorities, and was a scion of the line or tribe of Koreish, and the 
family of Hashim, the latter celebrated in their country as princes 
of the Holy City of Mecca, as guardians of the Caaba, and as 
claimants of direct descent from Abraham, through Ishmael. His 
father, Abdallah, a merchant, died shortly after the son's birth, 
and his mother, Amina, six years later, neither leaving any prop- 
erty of consequence. The orphan was cared for and educated 
first by his grandfather, Abd-el-Mottalib, and after his death by 
his oldest uncle, Abu-talib, in whose keeping was placed the key 
of the Caaba. 

This uncle, also a merchant, purposed educating the orphar for 
the same vocation, and together they made business journeys 
into Syria, and to the fairs at Damascus, Bagdad, and Basra. On 
one of the visits to Basra Mohammed became acquainted witn a 
Nestorian monk, the abbot of a monastery, who, after conversing 
with him on religious matters, declared to his uncle that great 
expectations might be conceived of the boy if he could change his 
environment. When twenty-five years of age his uncle recom- 
mended him as an agent to a rich widow, named Khadija, and he 
acquitted himself so much to her satisfaction that she married 
him, although fifteen years his senior, and thus placed him in 
comfortable circumstances. Of this marriage he became the 
father of four daughters and two sons. 

During the next fifteen years he made a second journey into 
Syria, and occasional visits to the southern parts of Arabia; had 
further conversations with the Nestorian monks, besides some 
learned Jews and Christians; and made an annual retreat, in the 
month of Ramadan, to a cave at the foot of Mount Hara, for 
religious contemplation. In this cave, he claimed, he was fre- 
quently visited by the angel Gabriel, by whom he was commanded 
to recite what the angel taught him. 



MOHAMMED 

Between his fortieth and forty-fifth years he began to proclaim 
his reHgious views, and soon afterward announced his mission — 
"There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his apostle." His 
wife became his first convert, and, after her, several of his and her 
near relatives. He frequented the public places of Mecca, ex- 
horting the people to turn from their idolatrous worship to a su- 
preme and merciful Being, and was often attacked and forced 
to change his abiding-place. 

In the twelfth year of his prophetic mission opponents of the 
doctrines of Islam, as the new religion was called, formed a con- 
spiracy against his life, and, to escape, he fled from Mecca to 
Medina on June 30, a.d. 622. This retreat was later adopted as 
the beginning of the Mohammedan Era, called the Hejira, or 
"flight." At Medina he was cordially received by the authori- 
ties and the populace, and here a large number of his adherents 
joined him. Here, too, he married Ayesha, daughter of Abu- 
becker; assumed both the sacerdotal and regal dignity; and de- 
clared his resolution to propagate his doctrines henceforth with 
the sword. 

On January 13, 624, in the first engagement with his enemies, 
he defeated a body of nearly one thousand Meccans with less 
than a third of that number, and was so successful in other mili- 
tary operations that at his death, June 8, a.d. 632, he had made 
himself the master practically of all Arabia. 

In the early part of his active propaganda he was frequently called 
upon to give a demonstration of miraculous powers; but the only 
act he ever professed to have accomplished was a journey by 
night on the back of the ass named Borak ("lightning,") from the 
temple at Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence through the heavens. 

Mohammedanism to-day ranks as the fourth great religious 
creed of the world, and its adherents are estimated to number over 
200,000,000. Of 17,609,000 in Europe, Russia is credited with 
14,000,000; Turkey, 2,708,000; Bulgaria, 571,000; Rumelia, 
240,000; Greece, 45,000; Rumania, 30,000, and Servia 15,000. 
North and South America are said to contain 50,000, almost all 
in the British colonies; Africa, 86,000,000; and various countries 
of Asia, 109,532,581; Persia alone having about 8,000,000 of the 
Shiah sect and 800,000 of the Sunni sect. 



MOHAMMEDANISM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 



On the day of intercession for missions in tlie 
year 1873 Professor Max Miiller advanced the the- 
ory that the six great rehgions of the world are 
divisible into missionary and non - missionary re- 
ligions. Under the first head he places Bud- 
dhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism; while 
Brahminism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism belong 
to the latter class. He adds that the characteristic 
feature of missionary religions is that in these 
''the spreading of the truth and the conversion 
of unbelievers are raised to the rank of a sacred 
duty by the founder. . . . It is the spirit of 
truth in the hearts of believers which cannot rest 
unless it manifests itself in thought, word, and 
deed, which is not satisfied till it has carried its 
message to every human soul, till what it believes 
to be the truth is accepted as the truth by all mem- 
bers of the human family.'' 

It is from the zeal for propagation in a religion 
that we are able to judge of its vitality. If, for 
example, we wish to gain a clear idea of the vitality 

53 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of Christianity, we must not direct our attention 
towards the intellectual centres of Christian coun- 
tries, where materialism and hypercriticism often 
obscure the image of eternal religion, where indif- 
ference and skepticism seem to threaten the very 
existence of the faith, but we must look at the 
missionary work, in which, with youthful enthusi- 
asm and sacred zeal, not the least valuable elements 
of the nations are active in the propagation of the 
faith, often at the sacrifice of their own lives. 

The same is true also of Mohammedanism, in 
connection with which a striking activity in the 
spreading of its teaching is displayed. This fact 
is not sufficiently recognized, and -it may, there- 
fore, be of general interest to give some information 
as to the present condition of Mohammedanism, 
the number of its adherents, and the manner of its 
propagation. From the facts and figures adduced 
below we shall be enabled, at the same time, to 
form an opinion as to whether Pan-Islamism con- 
stitutes a danger to Oriental civilization, as is 
asserted by some authorities on Eastern matters. 
Furthermore, the approaching close of the century 
presents a fitting occasion for a retrospective glance 
at the religious and intellectual movements of the 
past hundred years. In the nineteenth century, 
especially, technical knowledge has made vast 
progress, and the ever-increasing energies at work 
in the life of civilized races naturally sought before 
long to bring other spheres under their influence. 
It was in the nineteenth century that modern civil- 

54 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

ization first came actually face to face with Moham- 
medanism, which forms, as it were, a barrier be- 
tween Western culture and non-civilized peoples. 
Step by step, the influences of the West encroach 
upon the borders of the Mohammedan world, not, 
of course, without producing certain reactions. So 
it is that, in the nineteenth century, after a long 
interval, Mohammedanism again manifests ex- 
pansive activity, and in a manner, indeed, which 
evokes our admiration. 

I will begin by giving, by means of figures, an 
idea of the present condition of Mohammedanism 
in the different continents, compared with its pro- 
portions about one hundred years ago.* 

The status of Islam in America may be dis- 
missed ver3^ briefly. On the whole continent of 
North and South America there live only about 
49,500 Mohammedans, there being 20,500 in North 
and Central America, inclusive of the West Indies ; 
the other 29,000 are in South America, where the 
British colony of Guiana alone contains 21,000 Mo- 
hammedans. These are exclusively workmen, the 
coolies imported from India and China. There is 
here as little question of the progress of Moham- 
medanism as of its retrogression; conversions to 

* For the years 1890-1897 especially good and critically sound 
materials are afforded by the excellent work of Dr. Jansen, The 
Propagation of Mohammedanisni {Die Verbreitung des I slams), 
1897. ^ut it is, of course, difficult, if not impossible, to obtain 
reliable figures for earlier periods. Here their want must be sup- 
plied by a survey of the spread of Mohammedanism from a geo- 
graphical point of view, as, for example, in the case of Africa. 

55 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Islamism do not take place at all, as the coolies 
live apart, and scarcely come into contact with 
Americans. They, moreover, generally return 
home when they have effected an improvement in 
their material position, and are replaced by other 
immigrants, who form hopes of large earnings 
in the foreign land. That the majority of these 
Mohammedans live in British Guiana is natural- 
ly accounted for by the relative facilities for the 
transport of coolies thither from British India. 

Mohammedanism has as yet penetrated very 
little into Australia, although the insular con- 
nection of that continent with the Malay Archi- 
pelago, where Mohammedans predominate, will 
doubtless soon produce a more active propaganda 
of Mohammedanism there. We have to record 
in Australia, inclusive of Oceania, about 19,500 
adherents of Islam, who chiefly consist, as in 
America, of Indian and Chinese merchants and 
coolies. 

In the Middle Ages, Mohammedanism, as is well 
known, had overrun a large portion of southern 
Europe — Spain, Sicily, southern Italy, and the 
whole Balkan peninsula, speaking in the widest 
sense of the term; at the beginning of modern 
times, it was geographically confined to that pen- 
insula, exclusive of the Tartar tribes inhabiting 
Russia, in number rather more than six millions, 
who remained behind after the great Mongolian 
invasions. At the present day the Balkan pen- 
insula contains about 15,700,000 inhabitants, of 

56 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

whom 3,350,000 are Mohammedans, most of them 
hving in Turkish territory. 

But in Turkey itself a constant retrogression of 
Mohammedanism is to be observed. Here the re- 
hgion of the Prophet encounters Christianity, and 
frequently succumbs, since the latter is usually 
accompanied by the superiority of Western culture. 
That this was not always the case is shown by the 
very interesting history of Mohammedan propa- 
ganda among the Christians of the Balkan pen- 
insula, in Albania, Servia, and Bosnia, where, 
especially in the seventeenth century, in conse- 
quence of the negligence and apathy of the Chris- 
tian clergy, Mohammedanism made surprising 
progress. Information on this matter may be 
found in the capital work by T. W. Arnold, The 
Preaching of Islam. 

The Society of English Mohammedans, founded 
in Liverpool by Mr. Quilliam, a description of 
which is given by John J. Pool {Studies in Mo- 
hammedanism), has attained the large number 
of two hundred members in the fifteen years of its 
existence. This absolutely isolated phenomenon 
cannot be seriously counted among the successes 
of Mohammedanism. 

On the other hand, great progress has been 
made by Mohammedanism in this century in Asia 
and Africa, its ancient homes; less through the 
power of the sword than by means of untiring 
missionary work. It is a fact that, especially in 
Africa, this kind of peaceful progress is more often 

57 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the result of a " jihad/' or rehgious war; but, in 
spite of this, it must not be forgotten that the real 
instrument of Mohammedan propaganda is no 
longer the sword, as in the first centuries of Islam- 
ism, but the teaching of the priests who succeed 
the soldiers, and who impart the faith to the masses 
of the people. 

Almost the whole of the modern progressive move- 
ment of Mohammedanism in this century may be 
traced, directly or indirectly, to a puritanical sect, 
the so-called Wahhabis, whose founder, Abd-al- 
Wahhab, appeared in the first half of the eigh- 
teenth century in the province of Nejd, in the in- 
terior of Arabia, as the reformer of a then very 
corrupt Mohammedanism. Before long he and his 
successors had such a powerful following among 
the nomad tribes of Arabia that in the year 1803 
they even gained possession of the two sacred 
cities, Mecca and Medina, and only about ten 
years ago was the Turkish government able to 
put an end to their political power. Like the Ref- 
ormation of Luther in Germany, this movement 
was originally directed only against the abuse of 
the veneration of saints, against religious super- 
stition and increasing luxury in worship, and 
therefore it aimed merely at a spiritual revival; 
it has, however, particularly since the destruction 
of its political importance, assisted a great deal 
in the exterior propagation of Mohammedanism. 
As little now could be effected by means of the 
sword for the renewal of the faith, so much the 

58 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

more fervently did its adherents labor as religious 
teachers within the sacred mosque itself. 

On the occasion of the pilgrimage to Mecca, 
obligatory on all believers in the Koran, a certain 
Saiyid Ahmad, formerly a freebooter and bandit 
in India, became acquainted with the teaching 
of the Wahhabis; and, on his return home to 
India about 1820, with true Mohammedan fanati- 
cism, he made it his life-work to spread the new 
doctrine — that is to say, pure Islamism. 

In the year 1826 he preached a jihad against 
the Sikhs. In spite of great successes at first 
over the Sikhs and the Afghans, who also opposed 
him, he w^as finally defeated and put to death. 
The continuous progress of Mohammedanism in 
Hindostan is chiefly to be ascribed to his follow- 
ers, who for a long time made the Indian city of 
Patna their headquarters. By careful calculations, 
based on the absolutely reliable publications of 
the Indian government on the Census of India, the 
following increase in Mohammedanism is to be 
recorded in different parts of the empire, in the 
period 1881-91 : In the Madras Presidency, an in- 
crease from 1,933,571 to 2,250,386 persons; in the 
Bombay Presidency, an advance of nearly fourteen 
per cent, of the population; in Assam, an increase 
of nearly thirteen per cent. ; in the Punjab, of ten 
per cent. ; in Bengal and the Northwest Provinces, 
of from seven to eight per cent. The whole of 
British India, inclusive of the tributary states, con- 
tained, in the year 1881, 250,150,050 inhabitants, 

59 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of whom 49,952,704 were Mohammedans; and in 
the year 1891, 280,062,080 inhabitants, of whom 
57,061,796 were Mohammedans. 

The striking increase among the Mohammedans 
beyond the natural growth of population represents, 
according to Dr. Jansen's calculations, 0.406 per 
cent, for this period of ten years. From this it 
may further be calculated (as has been done by 
C. Y. O'Donnell, one of the English census of- 
ficials) that, in about five hundred years, the whole 
of India will be an entirely Mohammedan country. 
This tremendous progress, in which, besides the 
above-mentioned Wahhabis, some other sects take 
an active part, notably the Faraizis (''followers 
of the divine precepts''), closely resembling the 
Wahhabis from a dogmatic point of view, is en- 
tirely the work of a peaceful proselytization. How 
much may be accomplished by these means is 
also shown by three million conversions to Moham- 
medanism, mentioned by the French writer De 
Lanessan for a period of ten years (about 1870-80). 

It is easy to explain the fact that India, the land 
of strict caste, should be a fruitful soil for the in- 
tensely democratic religion of Islam. The most 
numerous are naturally the conversions of people 
of the lower castes. On this subject let us con- 
sult one of the best judges of the religious con- 
dition of India, T. W. Arnold, who says : 

" The insults and contempts heaped upon the lower castes 
of Hindus by their co-religionists, and the impassable ob- 
stacles placed in the way of any member of these castes desir- 

60 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

ing to better his condition, show up in striking contrast the 
benefits of a religious system which has no outcasts, and 
gives free scope for the indulgence of any ambition. . . . 
The tyranny of caste tolerance is very oppressive. To give 
but one instance. In Travancore (west coast of India), 
certain of the lower castes may not come nearer than seventy- 
four paces to a Brahmin, and have to make a grunting noise 
as they pass along the road, in order to give warning of their 
approach." * 

We shall speak of these points again in another 
connection. 

Proportionately great has been the increase of 
Mohammedanism in Burma, where, from i88l to 
1 89 1, the number of Mohammedans increased from 
168,881 to 210,049, representing nearly twenty-five 
per cent, of the population. 

In the Malay Archipelago, also, the movement 
started by the Wahhabis in this century produced 
both an inward revival and an outward increase 
of Mohammedanism. The progress of the faith 
is there all the greater because the natives regard 
it as an opposition to the encroaching Occiden- 
tal influences. The number of Mohammedans in 
the entire Malay Archipelago is reckoned at 
31,042,000 out of 44,627,000 inhabitants. In the 
Chinese Empire, again, Islamism has made steady 
progress in this century. The number of resident 
Mohammedans (according to the estimate given 
in The Statesman's Year -Book) was computed 
at 30,000,000 in 1882, while in 1897 the figures are 

* Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, p. 220. 
61 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

put at 32,000,000, which is considerably more 
than the proportional increase. One of the best 
judges of China, M. Vassilief, depicts the con- 
stant progress of Mohammedanism in the year 
1866 in the following words: "Having entered 
the Celestial Empire by the same paths as Bud- 
dhism, Islamism will gradually succeed, as is 
not doubted by Chinese Mussulmans, in taking 
the place of the doctrine of Sakya-Muni." 

In other Mohammedan parts of Asia, such as 
Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, etc., -no progress of 
Mohammedanism is to be observed other than 
the natural increase in population, and this is 
quite natural in a country, like Persia for exam- 
ple, in which there are only a very small num- 
ber of non- Mohammedans. In Russian Turkestan 
alone a slight decrease of Mohammedanism is to 
be noticed, which may chiefly be ascribed to the 
systematic Russification of those districts. 

Mohammedanism is, however, making a trium- 
phal progress at the present day through the 
''Dark Continent.'' It will be interesting to note 
some of the chief movements of Islamism, espe- 
ciall}^ in west Africa. Almost all these move- 
ments may be traced to Wahhabite influence, 
whether it be that their moving spirit has come 
into contact with the teaching of these Puritans, 
or that newly founded orders have embraced 
Wahhabite doctrines in a new form, and preach 
these fanatically to the heathen. 

In the first half of our century was founded the 
62 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

Mohammedan Fulah kingdom, in the neighbor- 
hood of the Gambia River, by Danfodio, which 
led to a great spread of Mohammedanism. Dan- 
f odio, himself a Fulah negro, had learned the Wah- 
habite doctrines on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and 
he preached the ''pure faith'' in his native land 
on his return. He succeeded, by means of his per- 
sonal influence, first in converting the scattered 
Fulah tribes to his teaching, and next in uniting 
them in a powerful kingdom under his dominion. 
Above all, he understood how to rouse the religious 
zeal of his subjects, so that the Fulahs hence- 
forth belonged to the most active among the Mo- 
hammedan missionaries. So, also, the founding of 
the city of Sokoto, now the centre of a flourishing 
Mohammedan kingdom, in a district still almost 
entirely heathen at the beginning of the century, 
was the work of Danfodio. So, again, in 1837, 
Adamana w^as founded by the Fulahs on the ruins 
of several heathen kingdoms. The Fulahs bore 
the victorious banner of Islam westward as far as 
the ocean; and, at the present day, four powerful 
Mohammedan kingdoms in Senegambia and the 
Soudan still bear witness to the missionary zeal of 
Danfodio. What the warlike Danfodio had out- 
wardly subjugated was inwardly established by 
the priests, merchants, and teachers; they taught 
the newly won heathen to love and reverence the 
Mohammedan faith as a higher state of well-being. 
Even in districts where Christian missions seem 
to have gained a firm footing, Mohammedanism 

63 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

obtains an increasing number of followers. Thus, 
in the beginning of the year 1870, Islamism was 
entirely unknown in Sierra Leone and Lagos, the 
two chief English settlements, while now about a 
third of the entire population profess the religion 
of Mohammedanism. 

The chief share in these almost unexampled 
missionary successes is due to individual religious 
associations, or brotherhoods, which aim in their 
rules at the propagation of Mohammedanism as 
well as at the inward purification- of the relig- 
ious life of the faithful. In the western part of 
north Africa, especial activity is shown by the 
Kadriyah, who had established themselves as 
early as the beginning of the sixteenth century 
in Timbuctoo, but who were first stirred to the 
zealous propagation of Mohammedanism by the 
movement which originated with the Wahhabis and 
was supported by Danfodio. Their missionary 
work bears an entirely peaceful character; it is 
founded merely upon personal example and good 
teaching, upon the natural influence of the teacher 
over the pupil, and upon the spreading of higher 
civilization. 

Another religious order, the Tijaniyah, which 
also, on the whole, shows Wahhabite tendencies, 
engaged in the spreading of Mohammedanism 
with the sword in the fifties, under the leadership 
of a negro named Umaru'1-Haji, particularly in 
the region of the upper Niger and Senegal. But 
the real inward conversion only took place when, 

64 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

laying aside their swords, the victors began to be 
teachers of the subjugated heathen in the truest 
sense of the word; and, according to travellers' 
reports, this peaceful work is being carried on 
without interruption at the present day. 

About the middle of this century a still later 
order, the Senussis, of Algerian origin, penetrated 
into northern Africa, and, notwithstanding their 
short existence, can boast of remarkable success. 
For example, the w^hole tribe of the Baele, settled 
on the east of Borku, have been w^on to the faith of 
Islam through the labors of the Senussis, while 
members of this brotherhood may be met wdth 
throughout Africa, and even far beyond the limits 
of the continent. 

In order to give some idea of the immense spread 
of Mohammedanism in these regions, it suffices 
to mention that, at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, wath the exception of Timbuctoo, there 
was scarcely a Mohammedan settlement in the 
region of the Niger, while in the year 1897 from 
forty to fifty per cent, of the entire population 
were Mohammedans; and at the present day the 
Mohammedan sphere of influence reaches as far 
as the northern frontier of the French Congo 
State. 

Approximately, the southern limit of Mohamme- 
danism in 1800 may be taken at 12° N., w^hile this 
limit has now advanced to about 8° N. As regards 
space, the spread of Mohammedanism in the course 
of the nineteenth century has not been so large in 
E 65 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

the interior of Africa as in the western regions ; but 
the absolute Mohammedanizing of the kingdoms 
of Kanem, Bagirnii, and Wadai is principally the 
wc^k of this century. South of these three power- 
ful kingdoms we find a large number of heathen 
negro tribes which afford the potentates of Wa- 
dai and Bagirmi welcome material for their slave 
raids. 

In the eastern Soudan, in the early part of the 
nineteenth century, the conversion of the heathen 
to Mohammedanism had made but little progress, 
imtil, in the year 1835, a certain Muhammed 
Uthmanu'1-Amir Ghani entered these regions 
with the object of spreading the faith of Islam. 
He had come from Mecca, and after crossing the 
Red Sea had arrived at Dongola. From this point 
his journey was simply a triumphal progress. 
Everywhere the Nubians flocked to him as fol- 
lowers, and the regal pomp of his appearance made 
a powerful impression on the people, the report of 
his miracles also procuring him crowds of ad- 
herents. In Kordofan, where he remxained for a 
considerable time, his missionary work among 
the heathen began. Many heathen tribes still 
inhabited this neighborhood and that of Sennaar, 
and among these Muhammed Uthman gained 
great successes through his preaching. It was 
at this time that Muhammed Ali, the founder of 
the present Egyptian dynasty, was endeavoring 
to gain possession of the eastern Soudan, and 
the Egyptian troops supported the peaceable 

66 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

missionary labors of the active brotherhoods with 
all the more energy, because by their means they 
hoped for a speedy pacification of the new regions. 
But the religious zeal once aroused in this manner 
was later to become dangerous to Egyptian rule. 
It is well know^n that, after a persistent agitation 
had shown itself for some time among the Mo- 
hammedan inhabitants of the Egyptian Soudan, 
suddenly, in the year 1881, a hitherto obscure fakir, 
Muhammed Ahmed, who had been leading the 
life of an ascetic on the island of Aba in the White 
Nile (13° 30' N.), proclaimed himself as the ex- 
pected last prophet, the Mahdi ('' the one guided 
by Allah''), who was chosen to purify Islamism 
from corruptions and spread its dominion over 
the whole world. Muhammed Ahmed was a 
Nubian from the province of Dongola. In his 
youth he worked at the trade of boat's carpenter 
near Sennaar. But he soon forsook his trade, 
attended a school in the neighborhood of Khartoum, 
and, after being initiated into the mysteries of the 
alphabet and the knowledge of the Koran, he es- 
tablished himself as an ascetic (fakir) on the White 
Nile, and had soon earned a reputation for great 
sanctity. It would take too long to give a detailed 
description here of the tremendous successes at- 
tained by this dauntless man with unexampled 
rapidity. Notwithstanding all the exertions of 
the English and Egyptian troops, thej^ could not 
succeed in checking the rising, and on January 
26, 1885, the Mahdi's predatory troops penetrated 

67 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

into the long-besieged city of Khartoum, where 
a terrible slaughter began. The heroic defender 
of the city, Gordon Pasha, here met his death. 
Only in the year 1899 have the English troops 
succeeded in defeating the Khalifa Abdullah, the 
successor of the since deceased Mahdi, at the battle 
of Omdurman, and subsequently the news reached 
Europe from the Soudan that the Khalifa's army 
had been annihilated in another battle, and that 
Abdullah was among the slain. Thus at last has 
the death of the universally lamented Gordon 
been avenged, and the Mahdist movement finally 
quelled, as is hoped. Mighty as were the political 
disorders brought about by the rising of the Mahdi 
in the eastern Soudan, the progress of Moham- 
medanism here has been but small. Mahdism 
has scarcely spread southward beyond the old 
limit of the faith. The principal reason for this 
will probably be found in the fact that the perpetual 
wars of the Mahdi and his followers scarcely allowed 
of time for active propaganda, and the blood-thirsty 
character of the whole movement was not qualified 
for peaceful progress. It is true that we possess 
no unprejudiced testimony on the condition of 
Mohammedanism in those regions, as for the last 
twenty years the Soudan has been absolutely 
closed to all Europeans. 

Still farther eastward, on the coast of the Ind- 
ian Ocean, we come upon old Mohammedan 
territory — the Galla, Somalis, Zanzibaris, etc. 
In striking contrast to the religious fervor dis- 

68 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

played in the Mohammedanizing of west Africa, 
here there is scarcely any progress to be noted. 
Only among the inhabitants of Bondei and the 
Wadigo in German east Africa is an advance 
in Islamism reported. Notwithstanding, in the 
East the southern limit of Mohammedanism lies 
about 15° S. The cause of the want of progress 
of the Arabian religion may probably be found 
in the greater indolence of the east African ne- 
gro tribes. It must also be remembered that 
this is the region in which the Arabs used to 
make their slave raids by preference, a circum- 
stance which, as was seen above, has probably 
hindered the advance of Mohammedanism in the 
negro regions south of Wadai. 

In round numbers, at the present day, the Dark 
Continent contains 80,000,000 of Mohammedans 
to about 200,000,000 of inhabitants. " It is hardly 
too much to say that one-half of the whole of Africa 
is already dominated by Islam, while, of the re- 
maining half, one-quarter is leavened and another 
threatened by it.'' 

These numbers speak for themselves. Moham- 
medanism is on the way to a total conquest of the 
Dark Continent. What a tremendous advance 
in civilization Mohammedanism brings to the 
negro! Let us hear the eloquent description of 
R. Bos worth Smith, one of the best judges of the 
African races : * 



* The Nineteenth Century, p. 798 seq. 

69 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

" The worst evils which prevailed at one time over the 
whole of Africa, and which are still to be found in many parts 
of it, and those, too, not far from the Gold Coast and from 
the English settlements — cannibalism and human sacri- 
fice, and the burial of living infants — disappear at once and 
forever. Natives who have hitherto lived in a state of naked- 
ness, or nearly so, begin to dress, and that neatly ; natives 
who have never washed before begin to wash, and that fre- 
quently, for ablutions are commanded in the Sacred Law, 
and it is an ordinance which does not involve too severe a 
strain on their natural instincts. The tribal organization 
tends to give place to something which has a wider basis. 
In other words, tribes coalesce into nations, and, with the 
increase of energy and intelligence, nations into empires. 
Many such instances could be adduced from the history of 
the Soudan and the adjoining countries during the last 
hundred years. Elementary schools, like those described by 
Mungo Park a century ago, spring up, and even if they only 
teach their scholars to recite the Koran, they are worth some- 
thing in themselves, and may be a step to much more. The 
well-built and neatly kept mosque, with its call to prayer 
repeated five times a day. . . . becomes the centre of the 
village, instead of the ghastly fetish or Juju house. The 
worship of one God, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, 
and compassionate, is an immeasurable advance upon any- 
thing which the native has been taught to worship before. 
The Arabic language, in which the Mussulman scriptures 
are always written, is a language of extraordinary copious- 
ness and beauty ; once learned, it becomes a lingua franca 
to the tribes of half the continent. . . . Manufactures 
and commerce spring up, not the mute trading or the elemen- 
tary bartering of raw products which we know from Herod- 
otus to have existed from the earliest times in Africa, nor 
the cowrie shells or gunpowder or tobacco or rum, but 
manufactures involving considerable skill and a commerce 
which is elaborately organized. ... As regards the 

70 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

individual, it is admitted on all hands that Islam gives to its 
new negro converts an energy, a dignity, a self-reliance, and 
a self-respect which is all too rarely found in their pagan or 
their Christian fellow-countrymen." 

And, if we inquire the manner in which Mo- 
hammedanism attains its almost unexampled 
successes, we are amazed at the simplicity of its 
methods. The propaganda takes place without 
attracting the attention of the world. Islam does 
not send forth its missionaries into heathen lands, 
like Christianity, with the prescribed task of in- 
ducing the largest number possible to embrace 
their own faith. The emissaries of Mohamme- 
danism are the travellers, the merchants, who, while 
engaged in lucrative conmiercial transactions, 
implant their civilization and their faith. From the 
first, the population mistrusts the missionaries 
sent ad hoc into their midst. They cannot com- 
prehend the object of the coming of the stranger; 
the people have no confidence in him, and therefore 
oppose his undertakings. It is otherwise with 
the Mohammedan merchant; he does not seek to 
impose his religion upon the people, but wisely 
waits until they come to him to beg for enlighten- 
ment, for it is with nations as with children — what 
is given them they despise, while they eagerly 
desire what is apparently withheld from them. 

At the same time, the sui-disant Mohammedan 
missionaries display far greater tact in the choice 
of their methods, as they manage to vary these 
according to the peculiarities of the nations with 

71 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

whom they have to deal. They bring civilization 
to the African savages. They found cities and 
populate them with Mohammedan colonists, whom 
they transport from other districts; so, for in- 
stance, they took advantage of the great famine 
which threatened to depopulate the land of the 
Wanyikas on the Zanzibar coast to display Islam- 
ism as the religion of love and beneficent actions. 
They also occasionally win new followers to their 
faith by liberating them from the bonds of slavery. 
Thus, the founder of the Senussi order once pur- 
chased a w^hole caravan of slaves, chiefly natives 
of Wadai, and had them instructed individually 
in the faith of Islam. He then gave them their 
freedom and sent them back to their own country. 
These converts naturally gained crowds of new 
followers to the faith. 

On the whole, Mohammedanism shows a mar- 
vellous adaptability. Where Mohammedans find 
an ancient civilization, as, for example, in China, 
they avoid either wounding or provoking those 
of a different belief, and manage to adapt religious 
ordinances to old customs; they include the old 
feasts in their calendar, and take an active share 
in all the doings of their fellow-citizens of a dif- 
ferent faith. Their tact is also shown by small 
concessions in external arrangements. In China, 
for instance, they are careful not to build their 
mosques higher than the other temples, and there- 
fore the mosques are not adorned with minarets in 
that country. By the power of their eloquence 

72 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

their preachers have brought it to pass that in 
China, even in government circles, Mohammedan- 
ism is regarded as uniting the best points of Con- 
fucianism and Buddhism. One of their chief 
methods of propaganda is the school, as has been 
remarked above. Here they educate future genera- 
tions in their own views. 

The main reason for the great successes of Mo- 
hammedanism, especially among the uncivilized 
heathen of Africa, consists in the great simplicity 
of the religion in question. '' There is no God but 
God," and "Mohammed is the Prophet of God.'' 
The convert need only believe these two sentences, 
and he is at once a Mussulman. After learning 
this simple confession of faith, he then needs only 
to fulfil the following five practical duties: (i) 
Recital of the creed; (2) Observance of the five 
appointed times of prayer; (3) Payment of the 
legal alms; (4) Fasting during the month of 
Ramadhan; and (5) The pilgrimage to Mecca. 

And every convert has equal rights with all 
other members of the great communit}^ In re- 
gard to the faith there are no distinctions; for did 
not even the Nubian, Muhammed Ahmed, rise to 
be the Mahdi, the Messiah of the Mohammedans? 

But not only externally, in the number of the 
faithful and in the magnitude of the territory under 
its influence, has Mohammedanism considerably 
increased, but it has undergone a kind of regenerat- 
ing process in its inner life, at least in certain im- 
portant localities, which promise to supply it with 

73 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

new strength for the struggles of the coming 
century. 

Mention has been made aheady of the strong in- 
fluence produced by the reformatory movement of 
the Wahhabis upon the inner hfe of Mohammedan- 
ism. Almost innumerable are the recently found- 
ed brotherhoods at work in Mohammedan territory 
in the Wahhabite tradition, either by the power of 
word, example, or by the might of the sword, or 
even by the union of both, as shown- by the example 
of the powerful Danfodio. And when anywhere, 
from whatever reasons, an insurrection takes place 
against the authority of the state, the movement 
always arises from ideas of reform, generally from 
a puritanical point of view. If the leaders of these 
movements have no such motives, and should they 
only be striving for personal power, they still cloak 
their ambitious ends with the pretext of holy zeal 
for the faith, as was done b}^ the adventurer Rabah, 
the all-powerful ruler of Wadai from 1890 till his 
death in 1897. The reformer who preaches against 
luxury and externality of belief is always sure of 
gaining a hold on the masses. But that these 
reformatory ideas, which are springing up on 
every hand on Mohammedan territory, should 
really produce a revival of the religious life, is shown 
again by the increase of the many religious orders, 
which can be statistically proved. 

Even among the usually skeptical Persians a 
movement full of true religious enthusiasm, the 
so-called Babism, has gained a large number of 

74 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

devoted followers. The tenets of Bab, the founder 
of this sect, who died as a martyr for his creed in 
the year 1850, are closely akin to the doctrines of 
Christianity. '' All men are our brothers, therefore 
let us do good to all, as the sun shines upon good 
and evil alike/' Only such an intensifying of 
the Mohammedan creed could have the effect of 
raising the inwardly degenerate Persians to the 
rank among the Mussulmans which is due to their 
exceptional mental gifts. 

That which holy enthusiasm for religion is striv- 
ing to effect from within is being brought into the 
life of Islamism from without. It was mention- 
ed at the beginning of this article that the en- 
counter between Moham^medanism and Western 
civilization could not fail to produce an effect 
upon the formxcr. But the powers that had slum- 
bered in Mohammedanism for so man}^ years did 
not come to life merely in the form of a con- 
scious reaction against foreign ideas. The many 
advantages of modern culture, the technical knowl- 
edge of our century, were too apparent to be denied 
by the more reasonable of the Mohammedans. 
They began to realize that, if they desired to op- 
pose the West, it could only be done with the help of 
the w^eapons of Western civihzation ; that they 
must learn from the Frengis, the Europeans. One 
of the most enlightened Mussulmans of our cen- 
tury, Muhammed iVli, the founder of modern Egypt, 
deserves to be especially mentioned here. As 
Danfodio and the Mahdi strove to spread the holy 

75 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

faith with fire and sword, so Miihammed AH's 
reformatory activity in Egypt is of lasting value 
to the further development of enlightened Moham.- 
medanism. These three men may indeed be taken 
as typical specimens of the different forms of ac- 
tivity shown by Islamism in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Muharnmed Ali came to Egypt as a simple 
Turkish captain, and by means of his remarkable 
gifts, his mental superiority, and utterly untiring 
energy, often indeed united with barbarity, he 
contrived in a few years to make himself master 
of the coimtry, and finally to shake off the in- 
tolerable yoke of Turkey. He had learned to value 
the advantages of Western culture, and every- 
where, in his government, in the organization of 
the army, in the care for commerce, in sanitary 
provisions, in the administration of justice, we 
see him earnest in introducing European ideas. 
It was he who, rightly appreciating the influence 
of the press on the people, started an Egyptian 
newspaper, the first in the Mohammedan Orient 
(1828). The recognition of the utility of European 
civilization has slowly but surely made its way, 
and it is worthy of notice that in m.ost cases the 
Mussulman becomes no mere outward imitator 
of the Frengi, but manages to preserve his indi- 
viduality, even w^hile he takes the good as he 
finds it. 

We see that there is a fermentation going on in 
Islam from one end to the other. Externally, as 
well as internally, Mohammedanism has made 

76 



MOHAMMEDANISM 

immense progress during the past century; we see 
how, perhaps with a presentiment of a conflict near 
at hand, it seeks to become acquainted with the 
benefits of modern culture; we see how in Africa 
mighty regions become tributary to it. It is pos- 
sible that if, in the coming century, some gifted 
man succeeds in inspiring these tremendous masses 
of Mohammedans with one aim, we shall have a 
hard battle to fight. Let us hope that Western 
civilization and European politics will succeed in 
leading the powers active in Islam into peaceful 
paths, and fit them to take part in the one great 
aim of humanity — the spread of true civilization. 

OsKAR Mann. 



BRAHMA 



Unlike Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Zoroaster, or the first 
Bab, Brahma is devoid of a human personality. The basic form 
of the word is commonly given as Brahman, which has a two- 
fold application. When used as a substantive of the neuter gender, 
Brahma, Brahmo, or Brahm, it designates the essence of the 
Supreme Being in the abstract. It is spoken of as "that which 
is invisible, unseizable, without origin, without either color, eye, 
or ear, eternal, manifold [in creation]; all-pervading, undecaying 
— the wise behold it as the cause of all created beings." And, 
further: "The human soul is a portion of this universal Spirit, 
and a man can be freed from transmigration, and be reunited to 
Brahma only by getting a correct notion of it and of the soul." 

In the impersonal sense, Brahma is not an object of worship, 
as a deity, but of contemplation, and is addressed as Om, or Aum, 
a name regarded with such reverence that no Hindu pronounces 
it aloud. 

Used as a masculine word Brahma is the name of the first 
person in the Triad, or Trimurti, of the Hindus, consisting of 
Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver or Redeemer; and 
Shiva, the Destroyer. In this sense Brahma is represented as a 
man of reddish complexion, having four faces and four hands, 
and holding in the latter a portion of the Vedas, a lustral vessel, 
a rosary, and a sacrificial spoon, respectively. His name signifies 
"knowledge of the laws," in allusion to his creative power, and 
to him the swan is consecrated. Besides being represented by 
some teachers as the supreme eternal power, he is regarded by 
others as the master of life and death and god of the Fates; and 
by others, again, as merely the agent of the Eternal One, having 
himself been created. He is believed by some to die annually; 
by others, after a longer period; by all, to rise again. 

Manu, whose writings are cherished by Hindus as the standard 
of their public and social law and are probably the oldest of all 
in the fifty-six Dharmacastras , or Books of Laws, dating from about 



BRAHMA 

the fourth century B.C., thus narrates both the origin of Brahma 
and the manner in which he created the heaven and the earth. 

"This universe was enveloped in darkness, unperceived, un- 
distinguishable, undiscoverable, unknowable, as it were entirely- 
sunk in sleep. Then the irresistible self-existent Lord, undis- 
cernible, causing this universe with the five elements — and all 
other things — to become discernible, was manifested, dispelling 
the gloom. He who is beyond the cognizance of the senses, sub- 
tile, undiscernible, himself shone forth. He, desiring to produce 
various creatures from his own body, first created the waters and 
deposited in them a seed. This became a golden egg, resplendent 
as the sun, in which he himself was born as Brahma, the pro- 
genitor of all the worlds. Being formed by that First Cause, un- 
discernible, eternal, which is both existent and non-existent, that 
Male (parusha) is known in the world as Brahma." 

Touching the creation of the heaven and the earth, Manu's nar- 
rative declares: "That lord having continued a year in the egg, 
divided it into two parts by his mere thought. With these two 
shells he formed the heavens and the earth, and in the middle he 
placed the sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the 
waters." 

At Bithur, on the Ganges, about twelve miles northwest of 
Cawnpur, Brahma is said to have performed a great and solemn 
sacrifice on completing the act of creation, and a pin of his slipper 
which he left behind him and which was attached to one of the 
steps of the Brahmaverta Ghat, near that town, is still an object 
of adoration. 

M. Fournier de Flaix, who is accepted as an authority on the 
religious creeds of the world, estimates the number of Hindus at 
190,000,000; but the British census of India in 1901 accounted for 
207,147,026, out of a total population of 294,361,056, the largest 
number being in Bengal, 42,540,359; the United Provinces of 
Agra and Oudh, 41,315,864; Madras, 37,026,471; Bombay, 
19,919,163; Eastern Bengal and Assam, 11,636,491; and the 
Punjab, 10,344,469. 



BRAHMINISM 



In order to bring out clearly the point of view 
from which I shall approach this subject, I must 
begin by a few preliminarj^ observations. We 
know that Christianity, the highest and purest 
faith in the world, has always been essentially a 
militant and missionary religion, pressing on- 
ward unceasingly to extend its doctrines and to 
make fresh proselytes. We know, also, that in the 
seventh century of our era another faith arose, 
even more intensely mihtant, more fiercely intent 
upon propagation than Christianity — the faith of 
Mohammed or Islam. By this rival faith Chris- 
tianity was fiercely attacked, and was eventually 
driven out of Asia and northern Africa, leaving 
only a few obscure sects, like the Armenians and 
Nestorians, surviving in countries which had 
once been almost wholly Christian. All the 
western region of Asia was easily overrun and 
converted by the Mohammedans; but eastward of 
Persia the spread of their religion ceased to coincide 
with the spread of their dominion; they could con- 
quer India, yet they could only convert it very 
partiallj^ In peace and war, they are always 
F 8i 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

proselytizing; nevertheless, Islam makes little or 
no material progress throughout eastern Asia. A 
vast majority of the population inhabiting that 
side of the continent adhere to older beliefs, which 
differ profoundly from the creed of Islam. 

The dividing line, the religious frontier between 
east and west Asia, runs, therefore, through 
India; for the two great religions of the East, 
Brahminism and Buddhism, are both of Indian 
origin ; and it may be broadly affirmed that, while 
all the dominant religions of the world are derived 
from Asia, the whole eastern side of that continent, 
including Japan, has been profoundly and per- 
manently affected by the teaching and traditions 
of an Indian ascetic, Sakya Muni, the Buddha. 
Yet, although Brahminism has exercised a vast 
influence over the beliefs and worships of Asia 
during many centuries, and still numbers, at the 
lowest calculation, more than two hundred million 
votaries, it is not a faith that can itself be traced 
back to an epoch or a founder; nor can any con- 
cise narrative be here attempted of its course, its 
changes, or general development. The utterances 
of certain semi-divine sages, the philosophic sys- 
tems of some great thinkers and commentators, 
have authoritatively shaped the leading concep- 
tions upon which the religion now rests ; we know, 
also, that different ideas and rituals have been domi- 
nant at different periods, that there have been 
degradations and revivals, and that the doctrines 
and practices of north India have varied, and still 

82 



BRAHMINISM 

var3^ from those of the south. But here it is im- 
possible to attempt more than a sketch in outhne 
of the general characteristics of Brahminism. 

In the first place, it is neither militant nor ag- 
gressively missionary; it does not openly attempt 
to make prosel^^tes, in the sense of persuading them 
or compelling them to come in. Secondly, it is 
not historic: it has sacred books, but no sacred 
history. And, thirdl}^ it has never been defined 
by formal creeds, nor has it ever accepted a single 
personal deity. The general character of Indian 
religion is that it is unlimited and comprehensive, 
up to the point of confusion ; it is a boundless sea 
of divine beliefs and practices; it encourages the 
worship of innumerable gods by an infinite variety 
of rites ; it permits every doctrine to be taught, every 
kind of mystery to be imagined, any sort of theory 
to be held as to the inner nature and visible opera- 
tion of the divine power. 

Now, at first sight, this is not unlike the old 
polytheism of Greece, Rome, and the pre-Christian 
world generally, with its multitude of divinities 
and multifarious ceremonials. There are pas- 
sages in Augustine's Civitas Dei, describing the 
worship of the unconverted folk among whom he 
lived, the deification of every natural object and 
even of physical functions, that might have been 
written yesterday by a Christian bishop in India. 
But then, one might ask, why was not all this 
paganism swept out from among such an intel- 
lectual people as the Indians, as it was out of the 

83 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Western countries, by some superior and more 
highly organized faith? Undoubtedly^, the per- 
manent conditions and the course of events which 
contrive to stamp a particular form of religion 
upon any great people are complex and manifold; 
but into an analysis of these elements I cannot go. 
It is sufficient for my present purpose to point out 
that the two sheet-anchors of Brahminism are the 
institution of caste and the sacred books, both 
of which were unknown to European paganism. 
The effect of caste is to give all Hindu society a 
religious basis; and the sacred books provide 
Brahminism with a theolog}^ — that is, with a sci- 
ence or philosophy of religion. I believe I may 
say that the old polytheism of the Roman Empire 
had neither of these two things. According to 
Greek ideas, the business of framing laws for all 
departments of human life, of laying down rules 
of conduct, belonged to politics ; while the philoso- 
phers of Greece and Rome were rationalists and 
teachers of morals, they seem to have regarded 
the popular superstitions with good-natured con- 
tempt They conformed to public worship that 
they might avoid odium and accusations of 
impiety, but they gave it no help or countenance; 
and in philosophic discussions they treated the 
ordinarj^ polytheism as unworthy the notice of 
serious men. They never, or very rarely, gave 
an inner meaning to myths and fables, or read 
the minds of the people through their fanciful 
beliefs. 

84 



BRAHMINISM 

But the Indian philosophy does not ignore or hold 
aloof from the religion of the masses; it underlies, 
supports, and interprets their polytheism. This 
may be accounted the key-stone of the fabric of 
Brahminism, which accepts and even encourages 
the rudest forms of idolatr}-, explaining every- 
thing by giving it a higher meaning. It treats 
all the worships as outward, visible signs of some 
spiritual truth, and is ready to show how each 
particular image or rite is the symbol of some 
aspect of universal divinity. The Hindus, like 
the pagans of antiquity, adore natural objects and 
forces — a mountain, a river, or an animal. The 
Brahmin holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak 
of indwelling, divine energy, which inspires every- 
thing that produces awe or passes man's under- 
standing. Again, it is ver}^ common in India, as it 
was in Greece and Rome, to deify extraordinary 
men, and the Brahmin does not tell his disciples 
that this is absurd; he agrees that such persons 
must have been special embodiments of all-per- 
vading divine power. In short, he accepts every 
variety of cvdt and objective worship as sj^m- 
bolical; it is merely the expression or emblem, 
suited to the common intelligence, of mysterious 
truths known to the philosophic theologian. In 
this manner, the gross idolatry of the people is 
defended, and connected with the loftier ideas. 
It is maintained that God is a pure spirit, but to 
make Him wholly impersonal is to place Him 
beyond the reach of ordinary human interest and 

85 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

imagination; so it is well for the less advanced 
minds to be encouraged by forms and signs of His 
presence. All worship, it is said, is expressed 
through the senses symbolically. A temple or 
church is a visible mark of our belief that the 
divinity abides among us; an image is the mys- 
tical token of the indwelling spirit; while prayer 
and sacrifice are the preparatory training towards 
more intelligent devotion. What we can conceive 
in our minds we may well picture to our eyes ; and, 
by this method, the innumerable shapes and sacred 
places of Hindu pol}^ theism are consecrated and 
adopted into the higher theology. It is on this 
principle that all the innumerable signs and carved 
images of divinity are accounted for among the 
upper classes. Each form, and every detail of 
that form, they say, is the outer clothing of some 
idea or impression; pictures and sculpture repre- 
sent some mode of the divine presence: although 
the high doctrine is that knowledge, not worship 
or ritual, is the true way that opens the door to 
the souFs complete emancipation. 

Above and beyond the miscellaneous crowd of 
things and persons, living or inanimate, unseen 
or embodied, that are worshipped as possessed by 
divine power, we have the great deities of Brah- 
min ism, from whom all this divine power proceeds, 
and in whom the principal energies and the fun- 
damental laws of nature are personified. Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Siva are the realistic abstractions 
of the understanding from objects of sense. Tliey 

86 



BRAHMINISM 

denote creation, preservation, and destruction, the 
constant succession of birth and death through- 
out all existence, the process of destroying to pro- 
duce, and of producing to destroy. Here we per- 
ceive that, as soon as we pass upward through 
the disorderly mass of ordinary paganism, we 
come upon polytheism backed by philosophy; we 
may scatter the irregular levies, and are confront- 
ed by the outworks of disciplined theology. The 
great Brahminic Trinity are adored with various 
rites and sacrifices; they have innumerable tem- 
ples, images, and personified attributes. Yet to 
all the more intellectual worshippers, Vishnu and 
Siva represent the course and constitution of nat- 
ure. And, if you inquire further about these 
thingvS, you will learn that all phenomenal exist- 
ence is a kind of illusion, to be gradually dissipated 
by the acquisition of knowledge; for the reality 
becomes intelligible only to those whose souls have 
been strengthened and clarified by long meditation, 
by ascetic exercises, by casting out all worldly 
thoughts and desires. To the eye of inner illu- 
mination, those who know God only by delusive 
appearances see no more than the shadow of 
divinity. And, conversely, to the empirical or nat- 
uralistic mind the whole religion is intelligible as 
a kind of reflection or mystical transformation 
of human experience, the vast shadow of the earth 
projected upon the sky. 

But all Hindus worship directly the high gods 
of Brahminism. Brahma, having accomplished 

87 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

once for all his work of creation, has retired into 
the background of the popular pantheon; he has 
very few temples or images. Vishnu and Siva 
divide the allegiance of devout and orthodox people. 
It is impossible here to give the diverse names or 
emblems under which they are worshipped; yet 
some mention must be made of the Sakhtis — that 
is, of the divine forces of preservation and de- 
struction, especially the female principle of produc- 
tiveness, as personified by goddesses, the mates 
or consorts of Vishnu and Siva. The worship of 
women plays a material part in all polytheistic 
systems; and the grosser forms have been caught 
up and transmuted into loftier conceptions of di- 
vine maternity. In Brahmanism, the lower rites 
are unclean and disreputable, though they be- 
come purified in the higher regions of ideas; 
and a curious likeness may be observed between 
the consorts of the great Hindu divinities and 
the emanations, or abstract personalities, of the 
Gnostic systems that prevailed in the first ages 
of Christianity. These emanations were arranged 
in pairs of male and female; and, indeed, it is 
obvious that human speculation can only attach 
form or function to divinity by drawing upon 
terrestrial analogies. 

Thus, Vishnu and Siva, with their consorts, 
are the pinnacles of the visible Brahminic edifice; 
they are different manifestations of the Supreme 
Being; they represent among educated men sepa- 
rate systems of worship, which, again, are founded 

88 



BRAHMINISM 

on separate schools or opinions regarding the 
relations between God and man, and the proper 
ways and means of attaining to spiritual emanci- 
pation. For the whole purpose of the higher 
Brahminism is to find and show the path which 
leads upward, from the simple, unvarnished popu- 
lar superstitions to the true and pure knowledge 
of the Supreme Being, by laying out a connection 
between the upper and lower aspects of religion. 
One of the cardinal points upon which the two 
systems differ is in regard to what are called the 
Avatars — the bodily appearance of the Deity upon 
earth. 

Vishnu, according to those who belong to 
Vaishnava tradition, has several times descended 
upon earth, and has appeared in various forms. 
From the high spiritual point of view, this tradi- 
tion may be interpreted as a devout belief which 
helps worshippers to realize, so to speak, the 
relations between divinity and humanity, which 
brings the Supreme Being within our limited powers 
of conception, establishes a bond of sympathy, and 
allows us to address to Him prayers and offerings. 
In fact, the dogma of Avatars is symbolical of the 
spiritual link and intercourse between God and 
man; it sanctions and gives meaning to a wide- 
spread popular tradition, that divinities sometimes 
come down and mingle with mortals and their 
affairs. 

Siva, on the other hand, is never represented 
by an image, always by an emblem of his powers, 

89 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

destructive or regenerative. He has no Avatars; 
and the high theologians of this school refuse 
to admit that the Deity assumes visible embodi- 
ment. They argue that, by assuming a man's 
body, He would become subject to the laws of 
mortality, to changes, imperfections, human pas- 
sions, and the like, to birth and death — and this 
they hold to be impossible, and inconsistent with 
the divine nature. The Avatar, they say, is an 
illusion. They permit and encourage all the 
rites and worships of the people as making gener- 
ally for devotion ; but they maintain that the only 
true spiritual path to salvation, for the superior 
intelligences, is by ascetic practices, by medita- 
tion, by separation from all worldly thoughts and 
cares; so that the soul gradually obtains true 
communion with the Supreme Being, and be- 
comes at last absorbed, like a drop in the ocean, 
into light and rest. The metaphor sometimes 
employed is that the soul is like the flickering 
lamp, tossed by the winds and darkness, which 
loses itself completely in bright, noon-day sun- 
shine, and remains still and quiet. To this doc- 
trine the reply of the Vishnu worshipper (I am 
quoting from a writer in a contemporary Hindu 
magazine — the Dawn) is that it is too high for 
the people. Worship and prayer can only be ad- 
dressed by ordinary folk to a personified Deity. 
The spiritual Brahma may be realized by intense 
thought and constant discipline of the mind, so 
that spirit can commune with spirit; but only the 

90 



BRAHMINISM 

ascetic who has arrived at the loftiest stage of 
devotional contemplation can reach this height. 
In the mean time, what is to be prescribed for the 
untrained, inferior souls? Man's spiritual crav- 
ings are as strong and as natural as his physical 
wants. What, then, should be his spiritual food? 
He should take shelter under something, to in- 
spire him with hope, liberate him from fear, and 
qualify him to be grateful and loving, so that he 
may be loved in return. A theology which does 
not attempt to be popular can never be generally 
useful ; and so it is necessary to accept and believe 
in ways of approaching the Deity that can be used 
and understood by the people. Yet, each of these 
two schools only professes to show a different path 
to the same goal of the soul's liberation, and its 
absorption into Pure Intelligence; for the Hindu 
mind cannot accept, as an ultimate notion, a per- 
sonal Deity caught in the meshes of time, space, 
and causality. It must follow until He is placed 
somewhere beyond all phenomenal relations; al- 
though the problem of reconciling the conditional 
with the unconditional remains insoluble. This, 
I repeat, is the high philosophical religion at the 
back of the rough, outward, popular worship of 
all kinds of animals, stocks and stones, natural 
forces, deified men, local gods, and so on. I do 
not think that the common paganism of Europe 
in the old times had anything like this behind 
it, any more than the wild superstitions of un- 
civilized races have in other parts of the world 

91 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

at this day. And, certainly, the Indian religions 
have one great advantage unknown, I think, to 
the ancient polytheisms — they have their sacred 
books. 

This, then, is the philosophic religion at the 
back of the popular worship, to which it gives an 
explanation and a final purpose. For Brahminism 
holds out to all men, as its scheme of salvation, 
the hope of escape from the pain and weariness of 
sensitive existence in any shap*e or stage. If a 
Hindu be asked what is the object and ultimate 
good that he is striving to reach through religious 
rites and devotional exercises, he will answer 
"Liberation.'' Whether he be peasant or pun- 
dit, his reply will be the same ; he must free his 
soul, the divine particle, from the bondage of the 
senses, from the pressure of encompassing phenom- 
ena, and so gradually become united with spirit- 
ual infinity. To attain this union, it must pass 
through very many bodies or forms of life; and 
whether the passage be short or long, easy or ardu- 
ous, depends upon a man's deeds, whether they be 
good or ill, pleasing or displeasing to the high gods. 
Belief in the transmigration of souls is common 
among all primitive races, having probably been 
stamped on the imagination of mankind by the 
constant alternation of death and life in the nat- 
ural order of things animate. With the Hindus, 
it has become, universally, the shape into which 
they have cast the instinctive clinging to some 
future existence which belongs to all humanity; 

92 



B R A H M I N I S M 

they are convinced that each birth is a waking 
out of vsleep and a forgetting; and to the concep- 
tion of a long journey, with many stages, they 
have added the good or moral purpose of purifica- 
tion and final changelessness. The inner self, 
that which speaks, is but a particle of the divine 
essence, which passes like a drop of water through 
cloud and river into the ocean. When we realize 
this to be the effective creed of Brahminism, we 
can understand how such a system, with its long, 
laborious way to salvation, its antipathy to action, 
its preference of grace to works, and its conception 
of divinity as something impersonal, remote, and 
everywhere diffused, stands totall^^ apart from the 
energetic, unwavering religions of the West, from 
firm reliance on a personal God, the Judge and 
Moral Governor of mankind, to whom all must give 
immediate account after death. 

In regard to the sacred books, they contain, 
partly, the sayings, precepts, and mystic utter- 
ances of the ancient sages; partly, praj^ers and 
psalms; and, partly, abstruse speculations on 
the divine nature, with scholastic dissertations 
and commentaries. The modern students and 
teachers of the various schools or sects of Brah- 
minism treat these books as authoritative, and are 
constantly discussing, expounding, or adapting 
them to the ideas and circumstances of a people 
that is becoming profoundly affected by European 
modes of thought. One thing must be noticed 
in these books, that they are not historical; they 

93 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

give no account of the rise or spreading of the re- 
hgion, they do not trace it back to a founder, as 
in Christianity, Mohammedanism, or even Bud- 
dhism. The Hindu would sa}^ in the words of an 
early Christian father, that the objects of religious 
knowledge are not historical, that such things in 
their essence can only be comprehended intellect- 
ually, or through divine inspiration. And the 
fact that Brahminism has no authentic and uni- 
versally accepted sacred narrative, that it is not 
concentrated round the life and* acts of a personal 
founder, is, I think, one reason wh^^ it has remained 
diffuse, incoherent, without a central figure or 
dominant plan. On the other hand, this very 
want, so to speak, of dogmatic backbone has left 
the religion elastic and tolerant, has enabled its 
teachers to assimilate and adapt the lower forms 
of worship, instead of endeavoring to destroy them. 
Perhaps I may now have succeeded in showing 
where lies the true strength and backing of Indian 
polytheism, which looks at first sight so irrational, 
grotesque, and superficial. It is upheld and in- 
terpreted by the Brahmins, who hold the steward- 
ship of the mysteries; so that, as the worshipper 
advances in intelligence and culture, he may find 
explanations which satisfy him, and inner mean- 
ings to account for outward forms. Although 
the Brahminic religion is not militant, does not 
make war upon rivals, nor openly go about to make 
proselytes, yet it is always ready to instruct and 
admit the ignorant folk into its outer courts; and 

94 



BRAHMINISM 

thus it gradually draws in the wilder races of India, 
who live in the woods and hills of the central region, 
or on the skirts of the mountains. It comprehends 
and absorbs miscellaneous beliefs and worships, 
treating all divinities as manifestations of univer- 
sal power, discovering germs of truth in the lowest 
layers of superstition, and treating the way of as- 
cent to higher notions as a kind of ladder, leading 
by steps from the bottom to the top. 

" What is the meaning of toleration in the Vedic sense of 
the word? Not that which makes all souls equal, all castes 
equal, and creates a confusion worse confounded, defeat- 
ing the providential design. The sacred teaching should be 
adapted to the souls in the order of their merit, but not that 
all souls, ripe or unripe, rude or unrude, barbarous or civilized, 
. . . should be adapted at once to the sacred teaching. 
The right meaning of toleration is, allowing each soul to 
stand on its own rung, and bidding it see below and see above, 
and understand that it has got over so many rungs, and 
that there are so many rungs to be got over still. The lad- 
der is tremendously high. But if you should ill-advise that 
soul that its rung is false, and that your own rung, say several 
steps above the former, is true, and that it should get at once 
to your rung, is it possible or conceivable to jump over at 
once several intermediate rungs ? In perfect concordance with 
the multifarious merits of the myriads of coexistent souls, the 
Perfect Lord has fixed the corresponding number of stages of 
religion." 

In this extract from the writing of an educated 
Hindu of the present day, we have the working 
principle of Brahminism, and its attitude towards 
the people at large, very fairly expounded. Never- 

95 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

theless, we have always to remember that, while 
the religion is tolerant, philosophical, and non- 
militant, yet, if Brahminism were attacked by per- 
secution, political pressure, or by some distinctly 
aggressive heresy within its own dominion, it 
would make an obstinate and dangerous resist- 
ance, and that any offensive disregard of caste 
rules or social prejudices might provoke a violent 
insurrection. But this is merely to say that a 
pacific religion may be formidable in self-defence. 
The secret of Brahminism, therefore, is to make 
abstract religious conceptions popular by means 
of symbols, pictures, and images; and conversely 
to recognize the rude idolatry and nature-worship 
of the peasantry as being in some way the igno- 
rant adoration of the greater gods. At the bottom 
of the religious scale, this worship is addressed 
to hills, rivers, or animals, to the thing or creat- 
ure itself. Next follows the process of personify- 
ing the mountain or the flood, the tiger or the 
boar ; they are the embodiment of deities who wield 
power, usually malignant; and it is gradually 
revealed that some profound theologic doctrine 
may be symbolically expressed by the same fig- 
ures. On the slopes of the Himalayas, where 
Buddhism and Brahminism are intermixed, the3^ 
worship certain mighty female deities called the 
Divine Mothers, who are types or incarnations of 
powerful energies that can harm or help mankind. 
One of the most famous of these deities is figured 
to the people as the Diamond Sav, whose image 

96 



B R A H M I N I S M 

may be seen at Benares, and who is also under- 
stood to be incorporate as the abbess of a Buddhist 
nunnery in Tibet. Now, the Buddhist symbol of 
ignorance, w^hich is the efficient cause of all illusion, 
is a pig ; while, on the other hand, the wild boar, like 
other fierce and destructive animals, is worshipped 
by primitive folk in the hills and forests. A most 
capable observer. Sir John Edgar, believes — and 
I quite agree with him — that this aboriginal boar- 
w^orship has become identified with the philosoph- 
ical type of ignorance and illusion ; so that here we 
have at one end of the ladder of religious evolution 
a mysterious dogma, and at the other end a wild 
beast. We have the same example in central 
India, where the boar has become one of the tw^elve 
great incarnations of Vishnu, and I may quote an 
account of the transforming process, as it was de- 
scribed thirty years ago by a missionary who 
wrote the best handbook of popular Hinduism that 
is known to me : 

" To the southeast of Ajmere is a district inhabited by a 
tribe called the Minas. An incident in the history of one 
of their progenitors, according to their present tradition, has 
led them to look on the boar as a sacred animal, though this 
may be a relic of boar-worship. When the Mohammedans 
came to India, the Minas seem to have confounded the Mo- 
hammedan horror of the boar as an unclean animal with their 
own regard for it as a sacred animal, and to have been in- 
duced, in some degree, to conform to their faith. In fact, 
they were half converted to Islam. Their old idol, however, 
they still worshipped, but gave it the Mohammedan name 
of Father Adam. Subsequently, the Saiva Brahmins got 
G 97 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

hold of them. They did not persuade them to give up the 
worship of Father Adam or of the boar, but simply to allow 
that Father Adam was a name of Siva, and to worship the 
cow as well as the boar. Temples were erected in their prin- 
cipal villages and stones placed in them bearing representa- 
tions of Siva as Father Adam, of a cow and a boar, and in- 
scriptions to the effect that the Mohammedans respected the 
boar and the Hindus the cow, but the true followers of Father 
Adam respected both; and if they should neglect the wor- 
ship of any one of the three, the worship of the other two 
<vould not benefit them. There are several Saiva temples 
in the district in which I heard the Brahmins invoke Maha- 
deva, and the Minas Father Adam.'* 

The truth is that the method of reconcihng all 
these religions with a double face, with an outer 
form and an inward meaning, is mysticism. The 
mystic is one who is illuminated by the light of 
real knowledge, who discerns the veiled divinity 
or the secret doctrine behind symbols, who per- 
ceives the unity of spiritual truth under many 
forms; and whose business it is gradually to lift 
the curtain to those who are fitted to understand, 
while he allows the stage-play to go on in front 
for the benefit of the crowd. This is, I think, the 
secret of the true Asiatic religion, and to a great 
degree the source of its strength and power of 
resistance. Of course, mysticism has existed in 
all religions, and has everywhere had its dangers ; 
everywhere, it has led to pantheism, or the iden- 
tification of God with nature, and even to the self- 
deification of the mystic himself — he fancies that 
he is himself divine and confuses himself with 

98 



BRAHMINISM 

God. But, in the West, this dissolving power of 
mysticism, which reduces all positive, outward 
religious beliefs and worship to symbolism, and 
regards the historical facts of religion as mere 
shadows and signs of mysterious truths, has been 
vigorousl}^ resisted both by Christian churches 
and by Islam. Instead of explaining the lower 
worships, they have trampled out and destroyed 
them; they have insisted on the unequivocal ac- 
ceptance of the facts of sacred history as essential 
to salvation; and, undoubtedly, this has been 
one main reason why the militant faiths have con- 
quered and kept a permanent dominion. 

But, in eastern Asia, the two different faces of 
religion (I may call them the mythical and the 
mysterious) have remained and have worked to- 
gether — the outer worship for the people who must 
have their innumerable deities, their images, and 
their miraculous legends; the inner teaching that 
explains all these things as symbolical, as signs 
and shadows of divine truths. You will under- 
stand that Hinduism and Buddhism have never 
set out formal creeds, containing articles of faith 
which a man must accept at his peril; they have 
not turned dogmatic propositions, such as those 
contained in the Athanasian Creed, into ecclesias- 
tical laws, so that a heretic who disputed them 
might, as in the Middle Ages, be punished as 
a pernicious law-breaker. All these masterful 
methods of enforcing unity of belief, which gave 
the Roman Church such power in the Middle Ages, 

99 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

and which caused rehgious wars and long perse- 
cutions, are unknown to the tolerant and some- 
what indifferent religions of eastern Asia. The 
people could always worship as they liked; and 
the priests, or stewards of divine mysteries, did 
not attempt to persecute, because they treated all 
outward forms and rites as of little importance, 
the one thing really essential being the inner 
truth which lay behind. 

Nevertheless, I' repeat that, to my mind, the 
strength, for resistance against outward attack, 
of these Eastern religions lies in the fact that the 
polytheism is backed by the philosophy; the ruder 
worships are supported by intellectual explana- 
tions, and the two forms are closely allied; indeed, 
they blend and run into each other. But I do not 
pretend that this kind of understanding between 
simple worships and subtle interpretations is 
unknown elsewhere. On the contrary, the gradual 
elevation and refining of ritual and doctrine has 
always gone on, is still going on, in all societies 
that have a studious and intellectual priesthood. 
You find it in the Roman Catholic Church, which 
has a scientific theology for the elect, and manuals 
of simple devotion, full of miracles and saintly 
legends, for the masses. But, while it is the busi- 
ness of theology to provide a reasonable ground 
for implicit faith, no Christian church openly al- 
lows tampering with the plain statements of his- 
toric fact contained in revealed Scripture, or permits 
articles of faith to be treated as anything but 

100 



BKAHMINISM 

positive truths. Hinduism has neither one au- 
thorized revelation, nor a church to guarantee and 
uphold it. Yet, in one way, the very looseness 
of its formation is an advantage, because it can 
assimilate and find room for almost any religious 
conception, treating everything as a fresh mani- 
festation of the all-pervading divine spirit. And 
science troubles the Eastern mystic no more than 
a fresh religion; for science may be understood 
as merely a symbolical language, shadowing forth 
the truths of divinity. One may even treat the 
Asiatic process of assimilating and melting down 
all religious ideas as belonging to the general in- 
tellectual tendency to accept the continuous growth 
and elevation by slow change of all forms and 
feelings, and the gradual development of high- 
er and wider truths contained in primitive be- 
liefs. 

As the Brahmins would put it, their religion has 
two forms: the interior, which is invariable; the 
exterior, which may be constantly modified and 
adapted to circumstances. The interior truths, 
the divine secrets, the real way of salvation, are 
known only to a few; the great majority of men, 
being timid and ignorant, are concerned mainly 
in propitiating the powerful and malignant in- 
fluences by which they fancy themselves to be sur- 
rounded. As knowledge increases, as man suc- 
ceeds in subduing and controlling the forces of 
nature, he overcomes or despises the troubles of 
this transitory life, he attains spiritual indepen- 

lOI 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

dence, and rises into a higher sphere of reHgion 
and morahty. My suggestion is that a reUgion 
of this sort, which has its outworks in paganism 
and its citadel in pantheism, has always had great 
power of resistance and endurance, for the very 
reason that it can change and accommodate itself 
to social or intellectual conditions. How it will 
maintain itself in front of the rapid influx of Euro- 
pean education and material civilization is an- 
other and much more difficult question. In India 
and in Japan, and to a certain degree wherever 
European influences have spread in eastern Asia, 
they are changing the whole atmosphere in which 
fantastic superstitions and metaphysical specula- 
tions grow and flourish; they are introducing 
orderly government and pacific leisure, scientific 
methods of inquiry and critical reasoning. Yet, 
after all, the influence of Europe is mostly in- 
dustrial and political; we are reorganizing the old- 
fashioned Asiatic governments and developing 
commerce and the sources of wealth. I hope that 
the morality, public and private, of the countries 
that are falling within the sphere of European 
influence will be improved. I am not sure what 
effect may be produced upon the profound spirit- 
ualism of eastern Asia. 

And this brings us to the weak side of a religion, 
which, though intensely spiritualistic, is founded 
on somewhat vague philosophy, and embraces 
schools of thought, accepts different theories as to 
the divine nature. It has no dogmatic rulings upon 

102 



BRAHMINISM 

such questions as are settled by Christian an^) 
Mohammedan creeds ; and, since it has no ecclesias- 
tical laws, it requires no man's implicit obedience 
to its teachings. I do not say that Hinduism 
contains nothing more than philosophic specula- 
tions and devotional rhapsodies. In the ascetic 
desire to be rid of the flesh, to extinguish worldly 
thought, and, above all, in the longing to escape 
illusion, change, and all the ills of earthly existence, 
there is a dominant strain of morality; and the 
great doctrine of transmigration of souls may well 
operate as insisting on the penalties of sin and 
the wa3^ of ascending to salvation by purity of 
conduct. Yet Hinduism, and even Buddhism, has 
never succeeded in so limiting and clearly stat- 
ing certain rules of faith and morals as to lay 
down and impress them upon the people at large, 
for their practical guidance in life. They have 
nothing, for instance, like our Ten Command- 
ments or the Lord's Praj^er, which order our lives 
and direct our consciences. 

It w^ould be presumptuous to attempt any kind 
of prediction as to the religious future of India, 
what wdll be the nature and direction of the changes 
that must follow altered circumstances and larger 
experiences. The antique polytheism will prob- 
ably disappear, though slowly, before wider and 
more precise conceptions and before a higher stand- 
ard of rational morality. Long ago, indeed, the 
Hindu philosophy struck out one line of thought 
that undermines all anthropomorphic conceptions 

103 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of divinity — that ultimate being must be out of 
relation with the phenomenal world, except, pos- 
sibly, by an unconscious projection of creative 
energy. But metaphysical ideas, though they 
are the central stronghold of all religious systems, 
have little or no influence upon the multitude; 
and the more practical question is. What effect will 
be wrought upon educated Hindus by the teach- 
ings of physical science? The supremely dominant 
principle of modern times is that the world is in a 
course of continual evolution, that life from the 
protoplasm is but a phase of immemorable exist- 
ence, and that the death of individuals is merely 
the natural process whereby all material forms 
are thrown into the crucible for reproduction in 
fresh diversity. But this principle has already 
been recognized by Indian thinkers, with the vital 
difference that to them the whole order of nature 
was spiritual, it was stated in terms of vast meta- 
physical theories regarding the deified forces and 
the mysterious relation to phenomena of some 
Absolute Being from whom all souls issue and to 
whom they return in dreamless sleep. The Indians 
could not agree to change a philosophic doctrine 
for a scientific discovery. On the contrary, they 
would accept Coleridge's view that the develop- 
ment theory, a theory of progress as regards the 
physical being, is typical of the progress of man 
as a spiritual being; that the living soul, spring- 
ing from an unknown eternity, is capable of end- 
less improvement, ever rising higher and higher 

104 



BRAHMINISM 

through numberless cycles of existence. They 
would firmly resist the invasion of the spiritual 
domain by uncompromising materialism, which 
would insist on dissipating all the allegories, sym- 
bolisms, personifications, and theosophies, leaving 
only the mechanical processes of plastic matter, 
the observation of phenomena, and. possibly, as 
some cold comfort, the worship of Humanity. 
If we are to have the cultus of Humanity, why 
not of all sentient life, of nature in its totality? 
And that will bring us round again to a materialis- 
tic pantheism. But the Hindu mind is essentially 
speculative and transcendental; it will never con- 
sent to be shut up in the prison of sensual ex- 
perience, for it has grasped and holds firmly the 
central idea that all things are manifestations 
of some power outside phenomena. And the 
tendency of contemporary religious discussion 
in India, so far as it can be followed from a dis- 
tance, is towards an ethical reform on the old foun- 
dations, towards searching for some method of 
reconciling their Vedic theology with the practice 
of religion taken as a rule of conduct and a 
system of moral government. One can already 
divScern a movement in various quarters towards 
a recognition of impersonal theism, and towards 
fixing the teaching of the philosophical schools 
upon some definitely authorized system of faith 
and morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical 
standard, and may thus permanently embody 
that tendency to substitute spiritual devotion 

105 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

for external forms and caste rules which is 
the characteristic of the sects that have from 
time to time dissented from orthodox Brah- 
minism. 

A. C. Lyall. 



ZOROASTER 



Owing to the conflict of traditions, ancient and modern, there 
is much uncertainty as to the personaHty of Zoroaster, Zarathustra, 
or Zerdusht, as he was variously called, the founder of the re- 
ligion of the Parsis. Prof. Martin Haug, the distinguished Ger- 
man Orientalist, rather infers that there were two persons of the 
name, and, if so, that the first one lived as early as Moses, or, at 
least, not later than Solomon. 

Another high authority declares that Zoroaster was by birth a 
Bactrian, that he was the son of Pourushaspa, and that he lived 
under King Vistaspa, or Gushtasp. Professor Hammer was of 
the opinion that this king was the same as Darius Hystaspes, and 
if this supposition were true Zoroaster must have flourished not 
long before the time of Cyrus; but later scholars have discredited 
this supposition, as Persian traditions make Vistaspa the last 
Kaianian prince who ruled in Bactria, and place Zoroaster's day 
before the conquest of Bactria by the Assyrians, some 1200 years 

B.C. 

Still another investigator tells us that Zoroaster was born in 
Urmia, a town in the present North Persian province of Azerbijan, 
about B.C. 589, and in the reign of Lohrasp, father of Vistaspa, and 
not in the reign of the latter, as others have maintained. 

His parents came from noble families, his mother, Daghda, 
being credited with princely birth, but in his youth they occupied 
an humble station in life. It is traditionally related that his 
mother was of such spotless character that she attracted the 
special favor of the Deity, who foretold to her the greatness of 
her son in dreams before his birth. It is also said that his birth 
was attended with many miraculous circumstances, some of which 
later found their way into classical literature. Dr. Henry Lord, 
in his Account of the Modern Par sees in India, quotes Pliny as 
mentioning that Zoroaster laughed on the day of his birth, and that 
his brain palpitated so violently as to repel the hand when placed 
on it. 



ZOROASTER 

Zoroaster passed his childhood in his native town, and in his 
student days seems to have given his earUest attention to the 
investigation of the phenomena of nature. We are told that he 
passed twenty years in the deepest caves of Elbrooz Mountains, 
secluded from the society of men, a statement, with some modi- 
fications, that has been corroborated by many authorities. 

Parsi authors call Zoroaster's journey to the mountain and his 
seclusion there his journey to Heaven, and give very full details 
of his reception and experiences in the abode of Eternal Bliss. It 
was in Heaven that he received the Zend-Avesta, with instructions 
to make it known to the king. There Ormuzd, on Zoroaster's de- 
parture for the earth, said to him: 

"Teach the nations that my light is hidden under all that 
shines. Whenever you turn your face towards the light and you 
follow my command, Ariman (the evil Spirit) will be seen to fly. 
In this world there is nothing superior to light." 

When Zoroaster went to the court of Vistaspa he is said to have 
been only thirty years of age. He first met the king at Balkh, and 
soon influenced him to become a zealous and powerful propagator 
of his faith. Asfandiyar, son of Vistaspa, became Zoroaster's first 
convert, and through the son's persuasion the father speedily 
followed his example. The king ordered twelve thousand cow- 
hides to be tanned with extra skill that the precepts of the new 
faith might be written on them for preservation, and these testa- 
ments were deposited in a vault hewn out of a rock at Persepolis, 
where they were guarded day and night by a specially chosen 
body of holy men. 

Zoroaster died in B.C. 513, when about seventy-six years of age, 
some records asserting that he was murdered during the persecu- 
tion of his followers by the Turanians. 

According to the census of 1901 there were 94,190 Parsis in 
British India, the largest numbers being in Bombay (78,880), and 
Baroda (8,409). In Persia the number was reported at about 
10,000. 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE 
PARSIS 



Among the numerous divisions and subdivi- 
sions of Indian castes, there is a foreign ethnical 
group, which, in spite of its aHen environments 
and utter isolation, has been able for centuries to 
preserve the purity of its race and faith and most 
of its traditional customs. We mean the adepts 
of the prophet of Iran, Zoroaster, successively 
called by the European travellers who have met 
them on the Indian coast, ''Parseos,'' ''Parses,'' 
"Parsees,'' ''Parsis''; they are the descendants 
of the fugitives who fled from Persia after the 
Mohammedan conquest, and settled at Sanjan 
in the eighth century of the Christian era. What 
was their exact number? Probably a very small 
one. Was this exodus from Persia the only one? 
It appears that several others took place, traces 
of which can be found in upper India; but the 
colony of Guzarat alone resisted the influence of 
their surroundings, and did not merge into the 
native populations. Nevertheless, they were — 
they are still — a mere drop in the vast ocean of 

109 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Indian communities, and at first they would seem 
to be a negligible quantity, except for the scholars 
who see in them the last representatives of one 
of the oldest creeds of the world and the deposita- 
ries of the sacred books of the Avesta and Persian 
lore. They are, in fact, the most active agents 
of progress and reform in British India, and have 
to be considered from a double standpoint, both 
religious and social. They occupy such a con- 
spicuous position that an excellent critic affirms 
that "it is scarcely possible to conceive of the 
public life of western India without them/' This 
judgment will meet with no contradiction from 
any quarter. However, we would not have the 
conclusion drawn from this that the Parsis are 
the only workers in the vast field of civic useful- 
ness. There are among the other communities 
deserving men, bent on promoting the welfare of 
India; but, beyond any doubt, at the dawn of the 
twentieth century, the Parsis are enjoying a well- 
deserved reputation for enlightened patriotism. 

" By their natural ability and position in the country, 
they were well fitted thus to be the mediators between the 
rulers and the ruled, and they are now playing this part to a 
considerable extent. In political and literary matters, the 
Parsis have led the Hindus and the Mohammedans. At 
the head of most political associations, at any rate in Bom- 
bay, and in the vanguard of those who fight, rightly or 
wrongly, for the political advancement of educated Indians, 
are to be found men of this race. It is a Parsi for whom has 
been reserved the unique position of being the first Oriental 
to take a seat in the British House of Commons. ... In 

IIO 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

social matters, they easily take the lead of their Hindu coun- 
trymen, as they are singularly free from those narrow views 
of caste which hamper the latter. . . . It is a Parsi who 
has taken up the cause of Social Reform among the Hindu 
population, and tried to better the lot of millions of women, 
mute victims of unequal laws and customs manufactured dur- 
ing the dark ages of Indian history." * 

Through their association with Europeans, the 
Parsis have undergone a complete change and have 
taken their place in our modern society. It has 
even been suggested that they are so thoroughly 
Anglicized that they are lacking in interest. 
Quite the reverse is the case. It is their very 
readiness to accept the improvements of life and 
to assimilate our methods, their unprejudiced 
and broad-minded intellect, combined with a pas- 
sionate attachment to their ancestral creed, which 
make them so sympathetic. We hope that in this 
short sketch we shall be able to show that Western 
civilization will not destroy Zoroastrianism, and 
that the future of the small Parsi commimity is not 
to be looked to either with concern or apprehension 
on the sole pretence that they are gradually dis- 
carding purely Hindu customs. What has garb 
to do with inner life and faith? A Parsi can tread 
the whole earth, wear any sort of dress, embrace 
any career, provided he keep pure in his heart the 
tenets of his religion, and make them sensible to 
his fellow-men by putting into practice his immortal 
precepts of ^ood thoughts, good words, good deeds. 

* Karkara, Forty Years of Progress and Reform, p. 50. 
Ill 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Such is our own opinion, and it is likely to be 
shared by any one who will study the transfor- 
mation of the social status of the Parsis. 



In 716 A.D., after a succession of hardships, a 
small troop of Persians, warriors and priests, fled 
from their own native land and disembarked at 
Sanjan, which is situated twenty-five miles south 
of Damaun (Guzarat), in quest of a permanent 
abode where they could freely practise their re- 
ligious rites. At that time. Sanjan was a flourish- 
ing emporium, and a favorable welcome was given 
to the exiles. The Hindu prince, the wise Tadi 
Rana, greeted the dasturs (or priests), and asked 
them several questions about their creeds and habits. 
The answers of the learned priests were so satis- 
factory that a sort of compact was passed between 
the immigrants and the Rana, who gave them 
permission to settle in his territory, and granted 
them the privilege of building a temple of the 
sacred fire. In their turn, the Persians submitted 
to certain obligations, as, for example, to wear no 
arms, to dress according to the Hindu fashion, to 
adopt some of the local customs ; and they so strict- 
ly adhered to the clauses that, up to the present 
time, some of them are still observed. It is most im- 
portant to note the starting-point of the friendly in- 
tercourse of the Parsis with the native populations. 

112 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

For years and 3^ears the Parsis lived in perfect 
peace and harmony; they increased in number 
and dispersed in small knots over the whole of 
Guzarat. The Mohammedan conquest at first 
did them harm. They had sided with the Rana 
against the Sultan of Ahmedabad ; after the storm- 
ing of Sanjan they had much to suffer from their' 
new rulers, and the sacred fire was removed from 
place to place. However, by degrees, the Parsis 
grew accustomed to the Mohammedans and had 
no persecution to suffer. 

It seems that, during that time, the community 
was wholly engaged in agricultural pursuits and 
absorbed in the practice of their religion. The 
European travellers. Friar Jordanus, to begin 
with, mention them in their narratives and relate 
some of their customs — for instance, fire worship 
and funeral rites. At the close of the fifteenth 
century occurred a most solemn hour in the 
history of the refugees, viz., the renewal of 
the intercourse with the persecuted Zoroastrians, 
or Ghebers, who had persisted in dwelling in 
Persia. A wealthy and influential Parsi, a resi- 
dent of Nausari, named Changa Asa, at his own 
expense, deputed a talented beh-din (layman), 
Nariman Floshang, to Yezd and Kirman, in or- 
der to obtain answers to a certain number of 
questions relating to religion. The Ghebers were 
overjoyed to see their co-religionist; they did not 
know that any of their brethren had settled in 
India. From that time, the relations between the 
H 113 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

Indian and Persian communities were never in- 
terrupted. 

Under the Mogul rule, the Parsis continued to 
prosper. After having been tillers, toddy-drawers, 
carpenters, cabinet-makers, they became wealthy 
land-owners, ship-builders, and, in general, exten- 
sive traders. Their principal headquarters were 
Nausari, the priestly town ; Surat, the great market 
of the East ; Bombay, the dowry of the Portuguese 
bride of Charles II. Caste system had proved 
extremely beneficial in preserving their religious 
independence, but had left them totally unprej- 
udiced, and had put no barrier between them 
and the foreigners. Hence the great advantage 
to them in mixing freely with the Europeans who 
were beginning to traffic with India; so that, far 
from keeping aloof from the Portuguese, the Dutch, 
the English, they made their services acceptable 
and acted as middlemen between the new-comers 
and the natives. By degrees they supplanted 
the supple banyan r they became brokers of the 
factories, duhashes, shroff s.] Their influence pre- 
vailed, and their pent-up energies at last found 
a vast field for developing themselves. Thanks 
to unexpected opportunities, an enterprising spirit, 
and no objection to sea voyages, they opened an 
extensive trade with the Far East, especially with 
China, Burma, and the Straits. In the mean 

* Banyan, a Hindu trader, and especially of the province of 
Guzarat. (See P. della Valle, i., 486-7, and Lord, Preface.) 
t Shroff, a money-lender, a banker. (Ar. sarrdf, also sairaf.) 

114 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

time, they were doing good and loyal service to 
the United East India Company. Such is the 
origin of their attachment to British rule and of 
the particular regard and esteem of the British 
government for them. 

Europe also had early attracted them. In the 
seventeenth century a Parsi had already come 
over to England, and in the following century 
Maniar was Burke's guest at Beaconsiield. 

Wealth rewarded the commercial skill and ex- 
treme honesty of the Parsi traders; it made them 
powerful and influential. Their liberality was uni- 
versally known; such men as Sorabji Mancherji 
Readymoney and Ardeshir Dady fed thousands 
of people during the famines. Towers of silence, 
fire temples, dharmsdlasr charitable institutions, 
hospitals, colleges, were in turn erected by the 
munificent gifts of their merchant princes. Above 
all, they were remarkable for their spirit of catho- 
licity, which recognized no difference of race, caste, 
and religion. Ovington, as early as 1689, had 
noticed this tendenc}^ In 1842, Jamshedji Jiji- 
bhai, the Bombay merchant so well known in the 
whole of India for his charities, was honored with 
knighthood, and in 1857 was created baronet, 
the first native to whom this coveted distinction 
was granted. 

Such was the situation of the community in the 
early fifties of the nineteenth century. At that 
time (1852) Briggs could write with accuracy that 

* Dharmsdla (pious edifice), a resting-house for wayfarers. 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

" the bent of the Parsi community was purely com- 
mercial/' He was perfectly right, and the evolu- 
tion, which has turned an exclusively mercantile 
caste into the one priding itself most on its educa- 
tion and its intellectual pursuits, was only be- 
ginning to develop. It is nearly achieved, at 
least in the main lines. Nowadays, the Parsi is 
no more the broker, or duhash, of the European; 
he sits next to him on the benches of the corpora- 
tions, in the high courts, at the Legislative and 
Vice -Regal Council — nay, even in Parliament. 
No wonder that such a contact has modified his cus- 
toms and habits. What has become of the ban- 
yan's co-worker, once in dress and occupation so 
much like his rival that sometimes European 
travellers have confused the two? The Parsi has 
abandoned his white garments, his curved shoes; 
in India his brown pagri alone distinguishes him. 
On the Continent, he is an English gentleman. 

This transformation that we are now witnessing 
is entirely due to Western education, and its in- 
fluence on a race whose plasticity is undeniable, 
and whose powers of assimilation are of the rarest 
order. This will be seen presently. 



II 



The Parsis were the first natives to take ad- 
vantage of Western education in the Bombay 
Presidency; as soon as the mission schools set 

1x6 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

to work and the Elphinstone Institution afforded 
a chance for intelHgent youths, the Parsis flocked 
to them, in order to benefit by the modern train- 
ing and equip themselves for a new mode of life. 
This eagerness to learn had already incited their 
best men of the former generation to attend the 
schools of the Eurasians and retired soldiers for 
the purpose of mastering English. Howxver, it 
was only in 1849 that the enlightenment of the 
bulk of the community was seriously undertaken 
by Sir Jamshedji Jijibhai, who established the 
Parsi Benevolent Institution for indigent Parsis. 
The schools soon imparted the blessings of edu- 
cation, free of charge, to thousands of pupils in 
Bombay and the Mofussil. Sir Jamshedji's exam- 
ple was followed by wealthy co-religionists, and in- 
struction rapidly spread among the lower classes. 

Nearly at the same time a spirit of reform had 
inflamed some generous, enterprising men, Fur- 
dunji Naorozji, Behramji Ghaudi, Manakji Khar- 
shedji, Dadabhai Naorozji, who were later on 
joined by S. S. Bengali, K. N. Kabraji, and others. 
The reformers were bent on erasing from their 
family life and inner organization the old Hindu 
varnish, and they set diligently to work. Their 
task was not an easy one. In 1861 Mr. Dadabhai 
Naorozji, in a lecture delivered at the Liverpool 
Philo- Asiatic Society, explained the peculiar con- 
dition of his own community. He said : 

" Under ordinary circumstances it may not be difficult to 
give a general account of the existing manners and customs 

117 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of a people; but, in the case of the Parsis, in the present 
transitional state of their social and intellectual condition, it 
is difficult to say what the whole community observe and 
believe." 

He then established a distinction between the 
old class and the young one, the orthodox and 
the reformers, and gave a rapid description of 
the habits of both, one steeped in an obstinate 
Hindu conservatism, the other full of Western 
aspirations. The priestly influence had been ap- 
pealed to by the two parties. And any one who 
desires to follow the phases of the struggle can 
peruse the old Guzarati reports of the associations 
started in order to support or refute each other's 
views. Female education formed, also, a serious 
part of the programme of the reformers. Parsi 
ladies were allowed to move about freely, to emanci- 
pate themselves from the secluded life which the 
Hindu fashion had compelled them to adopt. The 
Parsi's house was gradually becoming a happy 
home, instead of a gloomy zenana; the Parsi's 
wife was made his companion, his children his 
friends. '' Just as the influence of English educa- 
tion had operated on their mental condition, the 
example of the English modes of life and domestic 
habits had worked a revolution in their social 
condition.'' 

Journalism and politics first attracted the most 
educated; the community soon produced a group 
of able and qualified professors, barristers, ar- 
chitects, publicists, doctors, and scientists, The 

liS 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

admission of natives to the different branches of 
the pubHc service also increased their eagerness 
to win degrees and diplomas. " The schoolmaster 
is abroad/' Dadabhai had said in his Liverpool 
lecture; and this far-awaj^ schoolmaster, whose 
influence was so keenly felt, was in fact the most 
important personage at that stage of the Parsis' 
social evolution. 

The ladies were not long in soliciting complete 
equality with their lords. Vernacular, Anglo- 
vernacular, and English institutions afforded 
them the best opportunities. Some of them ma- 
triculated; others followed the whole university 
training, and were among the very first Indian 
ladies to obtain degrees (B.A.). In medicine, 
especially, they are at their best; Parsi lad^^-doc- 
tors are numerous and talented. In 1900 Miss 

P. B has become M.A., the only Indian lady 

who has gained that degree. 

Now, in order to acquaint our readers with the 
men of whom the Parsis have just reason to be proud, 
w^e shall introduce to them the two great person- 
alities alluded to in the first pages of this article — 
Mr. Dadabhai Naorozji and Mr. Behramji Malabari. 
Both are the best representatives of the aspirations 
of the forward party in politics and social reform. 

Mr. Dadabhai Naorozji sums up in his long 
life the whole evolution of his own community. 
Born in 1825 among the priestly class, he was 
forced to submit to the Hindu custom of infant 
marriage, which had also made havQc among the 

119 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Parsis. Under the excellent tuition of an in- 
telligent mother, he was most successful in his 
college career, and was among the first batch of 
Elphinstonians, won prizes and medals, and was 
the first native appointed to the chair of mathe- 
matics and natural history at the Elphinstone 
Institution (1852-54). He soon resigned his pro- 
fessorship, and went to England as a partner in 
Mr. K. R. Cama's firm, the first established in 
London through the agency of natives. In 1874 
we see him at fhe court of the Gaekwar of Baroda, 
exercising the functions of diwan (prime minister) ; 
then, in 1885, he was appointed by Lord Reay a 
member of the Bombay Legislative Council. After 
having failed in 1856, he succeeded in being elected 
in 1892 as a Liberal member of the House of Com- 
mons by a London constituency (Central Fins- 
bury Division). 

That a native can be returned to Parliament 
will excite the wonder of foreigners. Let them 
remember that a native is a British subject. Let 
them also reflect upon the number of difficulties 
which a candidature of that kind is certain to en- 
counter! At the fall of Mr. Gladstone's ministry 
Mr. Dadabhai retired. 

Such are the main lines of this useful career. 
Mr. Dadabhai 's activity has been unparalleled, 
his zeal for the welfare of India indefatigable. 
In his youth, he was already at work with the 
Bombay reformers; in England, he endeavored 
to bring India nearer to the metropolis, to promote 

120 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

among the natives the advantages of a system 
of education which would enable them to take an 
active share in the administration of their coun- 
try. He also presided over the national congress, 
and started with Mr. B. Malabari the Voice of 
India, at the instigation of Sir W. Wedderburn. 
There he pursued the same object which he al- 
ways kept in view, namely, to connect India with 
England and to place the two countries in direct 
relationship with each other without the in- 
tervention of the Anglo-Indians. His chief oc- 
cupation for years has been the study of financial 
questions of the highest order. He has striven 
— he still strives — to denounce the causes of the 
increasing poverty of India, the very causes of 
the two last disastrous famines which were point- 
ed out by Mr. B. Malabari in his remarkable me- 
moir of India in 1897, and recently by Mr. Digby, 
so well known as the originator and honorary 
secretary of the Indian Famine Relief Fund in 

1877. 

Next to Mr. Dadabhai ranks the great reformer, 
Mr. Behramji M. IMalabari. ''He is not a noisy 
politician,'' says his Hindu biographer, Mr. Daj^a- 
ram Gidumal, ''but he has had no small share 
in moulding the political history of the last ten 
years. He has been the right hand of Dadabhai 
Naorozji, and by his moderation as editor of a 
leading native paper, and by his influence with 
the native press, did yeoman's service in times 
of trouble." Indeed, he has succeeded in making 

J2J 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the Indian Spectator the people of India's own 
paper. "Being a man of the people himself/' 
says the Bombay Review, "he could understand 
the great majority of the nation, and was par- 
ticularly fitted for being a trustworthy inter- 
preter between rulers and ruled/' An excellent 
Guzarati poet, wielding a powerful English pen, 
he had at an early age acquired a great repu- 
tation. 

His life is not without a romance. The auto- 
biography of his childhood is " inouhliahle," to 
quote the expression of the French critic Filon, and 
is worthy of a place beside Rousseau's Conces- 
sions, Dickens's David Copperfield, and Dau- 
det's Petite Chose. Mr. Malabari was left a pen- 
niless orphan at the early age of twelve years. 
He bravely fought the hard battle of life, teach- 
ing the whole day boys older than himself, and 
during sleepless nights warbling beautiful 
Guzarati tunes, the whole time sustained in his 
hard struggle by the invisible presence of his 
departed saint, his beloved mother. "Firdausi 
sings of Rustam having carried the dead bones 
of his son Sorab round his neck in a string to 
remind him of his irreparable loss. I carry my 
mother about in the spirit. She is always present 
to me. In every good woman I see my mother. I 
pity every bad or ill-used woman for my mother's 
sake." 

At thirty he was a successful man, and wealth 
and honors were within his reach, when suddenly 

122 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

a change came over him. He began to speculate 
about the evils that mar the Hindu civilization 
in the higher classes, infant marriage and en- 
forced widowhood, and took an intense interest 
in the inner movement of social reform, which 
was silently at work among some thoughtful 
Hindus. He resolved to join them, to take the 
lead, if no other would do it, and for ten long years 
he was engrossed in his task. Lectures, pam- 
phlets, tracts — all over India — voyages to London, 
he used any resource at hand; until at last he 
succeeded in obtaining from the government the 
promulgation of the Age of Consent Act, which 
actually puts a stop to infant marriages and 
diminishes the chances of early widowhood (1891). 
Heaven alone knows the persecutions that the 
noble soul had to bear from the orthodox party; 
the Brahminic cliquism is so well able to abuse 
and revile adversaries! Hindus, generally speak- 
ing, are so touchy ! They do not like to be lect- 
ured by outsiders. The result was that he, Mr. 
Malabari, who had been the most popular among 
his contemporaries, when he took social reform in 
hand, immediately lost his popularity; but he did 
not care. He had made up his mind, and he ac- 
cepted the consequences of his generous resolution. 
He sacrificed excellent opportunities in order to be 
independent, and set a sublime example of disinter- 
estedness ; he refused honors, such as the shrieval- 
ty of Bombay and knighthood (1887). I^ return, 
he gained the admiration of the enlightened few 

123 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

who remained loyal to him. '' The country that 
produces a man of that stamp/' said Max Miiller, 
" is not a decadent country, but may look forward 
to a bright, sunny future, as it can look back with 
satisfaction, and even pride, on four thousand 
years of a not inglorious history/' 

In literature, Mr. Malabari's name is the most 
familiar to English readers from his well-known 
work. The Indian Eye on English Life, and his 
Guzarat and the Guzaratis. Some people see 
in him ''the best among the men whom India is 
producing, in the course of her new development " 
under British rule. We admit that there is some 
force in that description, but we shall here repeat 
what we have stated elsewhere. There are others 
of Mr. Malabari's contemporaries who can with 
equal justice be described as the best products of 
English education. To him we shall assign a 
different role. '' If in the annals of his community 
Mr. Malabari is the first independent thinker, and, 
in those of India, the greatest reformer, still in 
his thought, wholly emancipated, he belongs to the 
civilization of the world, and, by his work, to the 
history of humanity. In fact, Mr. Malabari shines 
brightest when least indebted to outside influence; 
in essence, he is a Parsi and an Indian.'' 

Now, though young, he lives almost the life of a 
recluse, visits plague hospitals and famine camps. 
When in Europe, either in Paris or London, he 
studies social questions and keeps aloof from 
society. Some day he will again appear with a 

124 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

new ideal, a new aim connected with the welfare of 
India. 



Ill 



Max Miiller long ago pointed out that the ex- 
treme simplicity of Parvsi-ism is the cause of the 
great attachment of its devotees, the cause, also, 
of the rare facility with which the Parsi accepts 
outward changes without incurring the risk of 
impeaching his faith. We cannot attempt to sum 
up the whole history of Zoroastrianism in a few 
lines. Ever 3^ one keeps in his memory the glori- 
ous career of the Persian Empire. After the Mo- 
hammedan conquest, it disappeared from the view 
of the world, and for centuries was faithfully pre- 
served in the two small communities of Persia and 
India. The European scholars were left to their 
own speculations, and possessed only such infor- 
mation as could be derived from the classics. 

When Anquetil Duperron brought Avesta to 
Europe, it created a great sensation. He gave 
a new impetus to science, and people know the 
glorious work done later by Burnouf and his 
followers. The Parsis, at first, were totally 
ignorant of the European studies bearing upon 
their sacred books. In fact, the attacks of a mis- 
sionary. Dr. J. Wilson, on the question of con- 
version, obliged the dasturs to come forward and 
explain the tenets of their religion. They did 
it in full earnestness and fairness, preserving 

125 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

their pure traditional doctrine. It was only when 
Dr. liaug was appointed superintendent of San- 
scrit studies in the Poona College, and was brought 
into contact with the priests, that the distrust 
subsided. Dr. Haug even collaborated with one 
of the dasturs, Hoshanji Jamaspji. Another de- 
cisive step was taken by a clever beh-din, Mr. K. 
R. Cama: on his return from Europe, where he 
had been acquainted with savants of high repute 
— Spiegel, for instance — he undertook to teach 
Zend and Phelvi on the modern philological prin- 
ciples, and introduced them among his co-relig- 
ionists. Now there is a complete parallelism be- 
tween the methods of the two schools of Europe 
and India. The latter produces original works 
and valuable translations, which do the greatest 
honor to the community. 

Moreover, the dasturs, who for so long had 
carefully concealed the tenets of their religion, 
grew even more and more willing to give informa- 
tion about them. Sometimes they do not quite 
agree with the views of our Western scholars. No 
wonder; science and faith cannot use the same 
criterion. 

^ Zoroastrianism, or Parsi-ism, is a monotheistic 
form of religion, not a polytheistic one, as some 
people would have it. There is but one God under 
different names, Mazda, Ahura, and Ahura-Mazda. 
He manifested himself to a Bactrian or Median 
philosopher or reformer, Zoroaster, who is consid- 
ered to have constituted a religious doctrine, set 

126 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE P ARSIS 

forth in the sacred books of Avesta. According 
to Herodotus, the Persians had no images of the 
gods, no temples, no altars, and they considered 
the use of them a sign of folly. The modern Par- 
sis are of the same opinion as their forefathers, 
and repudiate any representation of the deity. 

Zoroaster's speculative philosophy teaches us 
that the world is the work of two hostile princi- 
ples, Spenta-Maynu, the good principle, and Angra- 
Maynu, the evil principle, both serving under one 
God — the first being the author of whatever is 
bright and shining, good and useful; the second 
of w^hat is dark and noxious. The conflict will 
end in the triumph of the good principle. 

The confusion of the philosophical and theo- 
logical system has given rise to the belief in dual- 
ism, and led to the identification of the principle of 
good with Ahura- Mazda himself. Let us here 
quote Dr. Haug, whose authority is so great in 
these matters. '' The Parsis are strict monotheists, 
and, whatever may have been the views of former 
philosophical writings, their one supreme divinity 
is Ahura-Mazda. Their view of Angra-Maynu 
seems to differ in no respect from what is supposed 
to be the orthodox Christian view of the devil.'' 
In man himself we find the same struggle. Salva- 
tion depends entirely on his own efforts and deeds ; 
so it becomes his peremptory duty to lead a holy 
life and to think, to speak, and to act righteously. 
The Mazdayasnian religion enjoins a sublime code 
of ethics. Mgr. de Harlez has rightly said that 

127 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the Mazdian religion is distinguished from all 
other ancient religions in this — that it has a '' moral 
systematized and founded upon philosophic prin- 
ciples/' The late lamented Dr. Haug also ob- 
serves that the moral philosophy of Zoroaster is 
moving in the triad of thought, word, and deed. 
These three words form the pivot upon which the 
moral structure of Zoroastrianism turns. 

But in the company of holy souls will be the 
reward of the pure ; the wicked will go to the house 
of impurity and utter darkness. But at the end 
of the world '(which is to be synchronous with the 
end of the present cycle) there will be a general 
purification and regeneration. All souls will be 
furnished with new bodies and commence a life 
of ineffable bliss. '' Then he [the Saostryant*] 
shall restore the world, which will [thenceforth] 
never grow old and never die, never decaying 
and never rotting, ever living and ever increasing, 
and master of its wish, when the dead will rise, 
when life and immortality will come, and the 
world will be restored at [God's] wish.'' t 

Zoroastrian worship consists of oral recitations 
of portions of the sacred words, or such recitations 
combined and accompanied with the performance 
of ritual. The offerings are fruit, flowers, milk, 
incense, especially the juice of the haoma plant. 
The offices are few; they are performed by priests, 
who constitute a distinct class apart from the rest ; 
no layman can become a priest; no priest can 

* The Messiah of the Parsis. t Zamyad Yasht, p. 89. 

128 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE P ARSIS 

even marry the daughter of a la3^man. In the 
priestly class, all the j^ouths now do not pass 
through the Navar and ]\Iartab ceremonies which 
made them priests (ervad). The dignity of dastur 
is the highest in the craft. Their duties are numer- 
ous ; thej^ have to attend to the service of the tem- 
ples and keep the fire constantly burning there. 
The ancient Iranians always regarded this ele- 
ment as the symbol of divinity and, as such, worthy 
of respect; but the}^ never professed themselves to 
be the worshippers of the Fire. The modern Parsis 
consider fire "as an emblem of refulgence, glory, 
and light, as the most perfect symbol of God and 
as the best and noblest representative of his divin- 
ity." Bishop Aleurin has given his opinion about 
fire reverence in such excellent and choice expres- 
sions that we cannot help (quoting them. ''I am, 
therefore, very far from supposing that the Parsi 
fire worship is idolatry. Whoever accuses the 
Parsis of that most heinous of all crimes, and is 
not able to prove that they believe fire or sun to 
be God himself, is certainly guilty of the most de- 
testable sin of calumn}^'' 

The Zoroastrian is not forced to attend places 
of worship in order to say his prayers nor to wait 
for a priest. The old Iranians, as is well known, 
deemed that nature in all its grandeur is their 
temple of worship. Often, at Bomba}^, numbers of 
Parsis go to the sea-shore and recite their prayers, 
with their faces turned to the rising or the setting 
sun. 

I 129 



6REAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

The religious obligations of the Parsi are few. 
Between the age of seven and five a Zoroastrian 
must be invested with the sudeah (shirt) and 
kushti ( girdle ), which are the visible symbols 
or emblems of the Mazdayasni rehgion. The cer- 
emony is called naojot (new, or first, worship). 
The candidate declares himself to be a worshipper 
of Mazda, a follower of Zoroaster, an opponent 
of daevas (false gods), and subject to the laws of 
Ahura. Marriage is blessed by a priest; the out- 
ward pomp is, or rather was, totally Hindu. As 
to death and funeral rites, the ceremonies are most 
antique ; the mode of disposing of the dead on 
high walls or stone platforms (towers of silence) 
is purely Avestic. Of course, it has long been and 
it still is an object of wonder to foreigners; but, 
after a consideration of the laws of hygiene and 
sanitation, the most averse to the custom grow 
reconciled to it. 

A remarkable feature of modern Parsi-ism is 
the repugnance of the whole community either to 
proselytism or conversion. It is a fact that the 
Parsis have always been deaf to the allurements 
of the Brahminic worship and to the earnest ap- 
peals of Christian missionaries. The coarse Hin- 
duism of the present could not tempt the pure soul 
of the monotheistic Mazdayasni ; as to the appeals 
of the missionaries, they have been also fruitless 
for other reasons. The remembrance of the few 
conversions made by Dr. Wilson (1839) is still very 
bitter. At that time, a Zoroastrian boastingly 

130 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

could say to the ardent apostle: ''With regard 
to the conversion . of a Parsi, you cannot even 
dream of the event, because even a Parsi babe cry- 
ing in the cradle is firmly confident in the venera- 
ble Zarthust/' Since then conversions have been 
rare. 

The best proof of the attachment of the enlight- 
ened Parsi to his religion is to be found in Dr. 
Wilson's protege, Mr. Malabari, whose companion 
and class-fellow, S. D. B. , embraced Chris- 
tianity. Mr. Malabari has stated that he resisted 
the influence of his old and respected friend, simply 
because he believed in salvation by faith and by 
w^ord, but did not think the mediation of another 
absolutelj^ necessary for salvation. However, he 
is not one of those who speak lightly of Christ. 
"I know not,'' he says, ''if India will become 
Christian, and when. But this much I know, that 
the life and work of Christ must tell in the end. 
After all. He is no stranger to us Easterns. How 
much He brings back to us refined and modern- 
ized!'' As to the missionaries, he fully acknowl- 
edges their good service to the cause of civilization. 

" We are indebted to them for the first start in the race for 
intellectual emancipation. It is to them that we are beholden 
for some of our most cherished political and social acquisi- 
tions. . . . Apart from its active usefulness, the Chris- 
tian mission serves as a buffer for the side of skepticism usual- 
ly inseparable from intellectual emancipation. At a time 
when doubt and distrust are to take the place of reasoned in- 
quiry among the younger generation of India, I feel bound 
to acknowledge in my own person the benefits I have derived 

131 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

from a contact with the spirit of Christianity. But for that 
holy contact I could scarcely have grown into the stanch 
and sincere Zoroastrian that I am, with a keen appreciation 
of all that appeals readily to the intelligence and a reverend 
curiosity for what appeals to the heart, knowing full well that 
much of what is mysterious to man is not beneath, but beyond, 
the comprehension of a finite being." 

The Parsis are totally ignorant of propaganda; 
they are most tolerant and never attempt to change 
the creed of any one. Were they always so? Is 
their present reserve in keeping with the Zoroastrian 
precepts? It seems that in days of yore they were 
more zealous. Some ancient treatises are of an 
essentially propagandist character, and we can- 
not help alluding to the most severe persecutions 
that the Christians had to endure under the Sas- 
sanian princes. Nevertheless, the Parsis, in India, 
show the greatest reluctance to increase their 
number, not onW by conversion, but also by any 
alliance with people of other religions. So that 
they have to multiply by marrying among them- 
selves; fortunately, they belong to a prolific race, 
if we consider the small number of the first settlers 
and their present position. 

IV 

According to the general census of 1891, the num- 
ber of Parsis then in India was 89,904; 76,774 
are quartered in the Bombay Presidency. The 
city of Bombay has a flourishing Parsi popula- 

132 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

tion of 47,498 souls; Surat, 12,757; then we can 
mention Broach, Thana, Karachi, etc. The priest- 
ly town of Nausari is, perhaps, the most important 
of the settlements outside British territory. The 
occupations in the lower classes are varied and 
numerous. It is remarkable that the Parsis have 
never taken to the more menial emplo3'ments, such 
as those of dajMaborers, scavengers, palki-bearers, 
barbers, washermen, grooms, etc. Before the ter- 
rible trials of plague and famine, among thou- 
sands of mendicants there were only five Parsis, 
four males and one female. As to the victims of 
immoralit}^, a Parsi was proud to record that " not 
a single Parsi female returned herself as living 
on the wages of shame.'' "' 

The Parsis are not exclusively quartered in 
India. Some are to be found in China (Canton, 
Macao, Hong - Kong), Penang, Rio, Mauritius, 
Cape Town, Madagascar, Australia. We do not 
mention Europe, where they come frequently, either 
for study or pleasure, never for a permanent stay, 
except in London. 

We must not forget the small group of the Zo- 
roastrians living in the Persian provinces of Yezd 
and Kir man. Their condition was for 3^ears mis- 
erable to a degree. The number of the educated 
few is limited; the head of the Yezd community 
is Mr. Ardashir Mihraban, with whom the writer 
became acquainted through Mr. E. G. Browne, 
the eminent lecturer on Persian at Cambridge, his 

* Karaka, History of the Parsis. 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

guest in Persia. In spite of his endeavors, he 
has not yet succeeded in raising the intellectual 
level of his co-religionists. Their social status is 
very low, indeed; and it is even difficult — this we 
know from experience — to lighten their burdens, 
as they are still too ignorant to understand the 
benefits of certain improvements. 

Their condition has been greatly ameliorated by 
Nasr-Eddin, who, by a firman, restored them to 
a footing of equality with his Mohammedan sub- 
jects (1882). Their number did not exceed 9,269 
in 1 89 1. They are remarkable for their honesty 
and chastity. Their Indian brethren have started 
a fund on their behalf. 



What is the future of the Parsis? The question 
is momentous, and it is difficult for an outsider 
to decide. Socially, they are growing more and 
more important ; the number of their distinguished 
men is daily increasing, and they have acquired 
a wide-spread influence. Now, as to religion, they 
are certainly more enlightened than their fore- 
fathers; but are they the same stanch believers 
as their predecessors? European rationalism does 
not spare their sacred books, and the spirit of free 
inquiry seems to have inflamed some of their young 
men. It has rightly preoccupied thoughtful 
philosophers. Mr. Malabari calls his co-religion- 
ists "a. flock without a shepherd/' and he is right. 

134 



ZOROASTRIANISM AND THE PARSIS 

The community lacks unity; that is evidently 
the weak point. For years and years the Parsis 
were led by their own Panchayet,'^ which ceased 
to exist after the promulgation of the laws of mar- 
riage and inheritance. The courts took the place 
of the anjuman.'\ On the other hand, the au- 
thority of the Dastur Dasturan,X being purely 
nominal, had ceased also to be effective. So that 
the two supports, religious and civil, happened 
to fail at almost the same time. 

The Parsis have thus reached a turning-point 
in their national career, a period as important 
as that when they began to mingle with Moham- 
medans and Europeans. The revival which fol- 
lowed has not yet ended, and they seem launched 
on the path of progress; but there are symptoms 
of such a rapid change in customs and ideals 
that one feels almost afraid of such rapidity. 

Fortunately — if we can say so — all the classes 
are not yet won over. The contest between the 
old class and the young one is by no means settled. 
There are still Parsis in the Mof ussil who are steep- 
ed in a pure conservatism. These are the very 
men who will serve as a dam to restrain the vio- 
lence of the flood. Gradually, they will be gained 
to the cause of modern education, and they will 
allow the forward party to try experiments which 
will guard the new generation against exaggerated 
theories. They will also learn that they lack 

* The National Assembly of the Parsis. t An assembly. 

X Literally, Priest of the Priests — High Priest. 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

cohesion, and that they have to make their own 
rehgion and philosophy the guides that they need. 
Both have aided them in their social development; 
both will continue to support them in their new, 
modernized life in India and abroad; and both 
will enable them to wait for the final triumph of the 
Good Principle. 

D. Menant. 



NANAK SHAH 

Nanak Shah, founder of the reformed Hindu sect known as 
Sikhism, from which emerged the powerful Sikh nationahty, was 
born in the village of Talwandi, later the town of Rajapur, in the 
Punjab division of Lahore, a.d, 1469. In his early days he seems 
to have been prepared for a commercial or mercantile career, for 
we read that after his conversion to the Nagamia worship, which 
consisted of the adoration of one God, he became "dissatisfied with 
traffic." To gratify a thirst for knowledge, he traveled through 
Hindustan, Persia, and Arabia, and visited Medina and Mecca, 
and the sacred sects of the Hindus at Vatala and the Picos (Mo- 
hammedan saints) in Moultan. 

Subsequently he became acquainted with the system of the 
Sufis and adopted their doctrines. He was especially influenced 
by the works of Cabik, a Mohammedan writer belonging to this 
sect, who earnestly enjoined universal philanthropy, and, above 
all, religious toleration. 

As a result of his travels, conversations, and study, he renounced 
all worldly business concerns, and consecrated his life to a mission 
for the union of the Hindus and Mohammedans, by introducing 
simplicity of faith and purity of morals. In carrying out his 
propaganda he treated both religions with respect, laboring only 
to remove what he considered superfluous and dissonant, and to 
lead the people to a pure worship of God and to love for mankind. 

There is preserved this saying by him, which attests the broad 
catholicity of his mind: 

"Himdreds of thousands of Mohammeds, millions of Brahmas 
and Vishnoos, and hundreds of thousands of Rahmas, stand be- 
fore the throne of the Almighty, and they all die. God alone is 
immortal. He only is a good Hindu who is just and a good Moham- 
medan whose life is pure." 

Nanak Shah died about a.d. 1539, in the present city of Lahore, 
and was buried near by on the banks of the Ravi River. As a 
governor and religious teacher he exercised both a temporal and a 



NANAK SHAH 

spiritual dominion over his disciples. He was succeeded in turn 
by nine Gurus, or teachers — viz., Angod, his son, who wrote com- 
mentaries on his father's system; Amardos and Ramdas, who 
made considerable changes in Angod's commentaries; Arjunmall; 
Hargovind; Harray; Harkrishna; Teghbabadar; and Govind. 

The Sikh doctrines were compiled into a volume called Adi- 
Granth {Original Record), by Arjoon, son of Ramdas, who estab- 
lished himself at Amritsir in 158 1, and became sole chief of a power- 
ful confederation. 

According to the census of 1901, the Sikhs in British India 
numbered 2,195,339, the largest numbers being in the Punjab, 
2,102,896; the Northwest Frontier Province, 28,091, and Kashmir, 
25,828. 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 



SiKHISM, the creed of the brave and hardy race 
that held dominion over the plain country of the 
Punjab during the first fifty years of the present 
century, and disputed the sovereignty of northern 
India with the English, well deserves the study 
of those interested in the birth and development 
of religions. Like some other creeds, it had its 
origin in a profound dissatisfaction with the exist- 
ing order of things, and a passionate endeavor on 
the part of its founder to break the chain which 
Brahminism had fastened round the feet and 
hands of every Hindu. Later, under the whole- 
some stimulus of persecution, it became a fierce 
and inspiring belief, which changed a nation of 
peaceful peasants into an army of disciplined 
warriors, who, guided by a leader of genius, were 
the most formidable armed force that native India 
had seen since the days of Aurung-Zeb and Shah 
Jehan. The revolt of Sikhism against Brah- 
minism resembled that of Protestantism against 
the Church of Rome, in that it was not a contra- 
diction of dogma, but a resistance to the intolera- 
ble pretensions of the priestly class. The doctrines 

139 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of Luther differed in but few and unimportant 
particulars from those of the orthodox champions 
of CathoHcism. The theological tangle known as 
Brahminism would have included the doctrinal 
subtleties and puerilities of Nanak without dif- 
ficulty. It was itself a compound of mysticism 
and realism, tolerant and all-embracing — theistic, 
polytheistic, and pantheistic at the same time. 
It allowed to the ignorant worshipper a myriad 
gods, from the ochre-stained stone in the forest 
to the awful personages of the Hindu trinity; 
while to the elect, who had risen beyond sym- 
bolism to the 'purer air, it provided conceptions 
of the Deity as noble and exalted as those to be 
found in any religion of East or West. But no creed, 
however lofty in conception or ethically worthy, is 
tolerable to free and liberal minds in which the 
power of interpretation and direction is jealously 
guarded, as an hereditary right, by a corrupt and 
prejudiced priesthood. It was against this pre- 
tension that the reformers of the West and the 
East took up arms; and it is a strange coinci- 
dence that the teaching of both Luther and Nanak 
was synchronous, and that they were born and 
died within a few years of each other. 

In this paper all that can be attempted is to show, 
generally, the line of doctrine expounded by Nanak 
and his eight successors in the office of Guru, or 
spiritual leader; secondly, to note the important 
changes introduced by Govind Singh, the tenth 
Guru and founder of the church militant of Sikh- 

140 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

ism; and, lastly, to observe the practice of the 
Sikhs of to-day, and the degree in which they 
have fallen away from the teaching of both Nanak 
and Govind and reverted to Hindu ceremonial and 
modes of thought. 

When Nanak, who was born in 1469, began his 
teaching, Hinduism had long crystallized into the 
sacerdotal guild which we see in India to-day. 
It may even be said that its religious aspect was 
then more lost than now in a multitude of cere- 
monial observances and social prescriptions ; for the 
influence of missionary and proselyting creeds, like 
Christianity and Islamism, has been to draw oiit 
what is best in Hinduism and encourage cultivated 
Hindus to reject the material and grosser part of 
their creed in favor of its higher esoteric teaching. 
But then, as now, for the uninstructed mass of 
the people, Brahminism was Hinduism — that is 
to say, doctrine counted for little or nothing, and 
the strict observance of the rules of caste, with 
the Brahmin as the top-stone of the social pyramid, 
was everything. Caste had been invented by 
Brahmins for Brahmins; a system by which 
Hindu society was divided and subdivided by 
hereditary and impregnable barriers, the Brah- 
mins remaining a sacred priesthood, immeasura- 
bly above all others, directing the lives and con- 
duct of all, and without toll to whom none of the 
ordinary functions of civil life could be effectively 
performed. The greedy Brahmin demanded his 
fees at birth and marriage and death, and to feed 

141 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Brahmins was a virtue far above devotion to 
mercy, truth, and justice. It was against this priv- 
ileged hierarchy that Nanak directed his attack; 
and, although he did not preach the abolition of 
caste as was subsequently done by Govind Singh, 
his writings are filled with acknowledgments of 
the brotherhood and equality of man, and he ad- 
mitted all classes as his disciples. Nor did his 
gentle and quietist nature attempt a direct assault 
on the Brahmin class, other than b}^ the denuncia- 
tion of the idol worship on the profits of which 
they lived. He even allowed and approved the use 
of Brahmins as private and domestic priests, to 
perform such ceremonial as was unobjectionable; 
though he rejected their teachings, together with 
the doctrine of Vedas and Puranas, the Hindu 
sacred books. Born in the Punjab, where the 
conflict between Hinduism and Islamism had long 
continued, he was doubtless influenced, as had 
been the bhagats, or pious teachers, who had pre- 
ceded him, by the central idea of Mohammedanism, 
the unity of God; and monotheism was the car- 
dinal truth of his doctrine. 

It is necessary to study carefully his gospel, 
known as the Adi Granth, to realize adequately 
the purity and beauty of Nanak's doctrine. This 
enormous volume is somewhat repellent to Western 
scholars. The only form in which it is accessible 
— for the Gurmukhi in which it is written is ex- 
ceedingly obscure — is the translation of Dr. Ernest 
Trumpp, a learned German professor, who was 

142 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

brought to Lahore at a time when I was chief secre- 
tar3' to the Punjab government, to undertake this 
difficult task, on which he spent seven years' labor. 
But his command of English was not equal to a 
rendering of the spirit of the original, and he fur- 
ther appears to have considered the Granth as an 
incoherent and shallow production, and its chief 
value to be linguistic, as a treasury of the mediaeval 
Hindu dialects. This judgment appears to me to 
be mistaken. There are, it is true, many puerilities 
and vain repetitions, from which the books of no 
Eastern religion are free ; but it is scarcely possible 
to turn a single page without being struck by the 
beauty and originality of the images and the en- 
lightened devotion of its language. No Catholic 
ascetic has ever been more absorbed in the con- 
templation of the Deity than was the prophet 
Nanak when giving utterance to his rhapsodies. 

The monotheism of Nanak is often not to be 
distinguished from pantheism; and, unless a creed 
be provided with a personal and anthropomorphic 
deity, it is always difficult to draw the line be- 
tween the two. Sometimes Nanak represents God 
as a self-conscious spirit protecting the creatures 
He has made; an ever-present Providence, who 
can be approached through the Guru, the heaven- 
appointed teacher, and ready to bless and emanci- 
pate the soul which worships sincerely and hum- 
bly. At other times, man and the universe and 
all that exists are but a part of and an emanation 
from God, who produces all things out of Him- 

143 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

self and to v/hom all finally return. In the same 
way, it would seem that Nanak in no way denied 
the existence of the lower deities of the Hindu 
mythology; or the poetic pantheism on which his 
belief in the one supreme God was based could 
hardly exist without the symbolism which inspired 
all nature with life, and found a spiritual force 
behind and within every manifestation of natural 
energy. Yet all such deities he asserted to be 
indifferent and unworthy of regard, much as the 
early preachers of Christianity treated the gods of 
Greece and Rome, in whose existence they believed, 
but whose dominion w^as to be overthrown by Christ. 
Idolatry he condemned, asserting that the service 
pleasing to the Deity was that of the heart : neither 
vain ceremonies nor the austerities which the Hindu 
ascetics had been wont to consider as the key which 
unlocked the highest and most secret mysteries, 
but a pure, unselfish life, a faith in God revealed 
through the instrumentality of the appointed Guru, 
or spiritual guide. Charity and good works were 
commendable and the worthy fruits of an unselfish 
life; but they were not of themselves sufficient to 
release the soul from its bondage to sense and 
illusion, or to save it from transmigration, the 
ever-present dread of the Hindu, or to insure its 
reunion with God. These results could only be 
attained by meditation on God and through the 
saving grace of His name. 

Although Nanak claimed to be a prophet, he 
did not assert that he was inspired or possessed of 

144 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

miraculous powers, though these were freely as- 
cribed to him by his disciples, both during his 
lifetime and after' his death. But he magnified 
his office of Guru into that of an intermediary 
between man and God, and blind obedience to the 
Guru was enjoined as an essential article of faith. 
The Guru's saving power was such that contact 
with him brought salvation to the most criminal. 
In short, the virtue of the Guru was supreme; 
and although Nanak himself claimed no special 
sanctity, but spoke of himself as an ignorant and 
sinful man, yet the Gurus who succeeded him, 
and who possessed more ambition and less piety^ 
were virtually deified by their followers; and the 
worship of the Guru and the surrender to him of 
the w^ealth, the honor, and the life of his followers, 
became as grievous a burden to the Sikh com- 
munity as the yoke of the Brahmins had been. 

The doctrine of transmigration of souls was com- 
mon to Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism — the be- 
lief in the continued existence of the soul, through 
countless changes into various forms of animal 
and human existences, until, by the virtue of the 
Guru and the saving power of the name of God, 
final emancipation was attained and absorption 
into the Supreme, when individuality ended. This 
practical annihilation, which the loss of individual- 
ity signifies to the less subtle fancy of Europeans, 
was the chief object of the religious strivings of 
the Sikh or Hindu, and it was the reward of virtue 
and of faith in God. It w^as thus from a different 
K 145 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

standpoint that life and death were regarded by 
Eastern and Western thinkers. To the former hfe 
is a burden from which the soul should seek release 
in f orgetf ulness and darkness ; to the latter, the idea 
of a happy immortality, as the reward for a vir- 
tuous earthly life, is the one thought which per- 
mits life to be borne with cheerfulness and death 
faced with equanimity. But the troubles and 
enigmas which have confused and perplexed many 
Christian communities found their exact coun- 
terpart in Sikhism. There was the same conflict 
between predestination, election, and free will. 
The sacred name was only communicated by the 
Guru to him upon whose forehead had been im- 
printed, from the beginning, the sign which desig- 
nated him as one of the elect. Destiny was absolute 
and supreme. Man was represented as a puppet, 
whom the Master made to dance as it pleased Him. 
In every breast, goodness, passion, or darkness 
was predominant, and human actions were neces- 
sarily the result of the influence that swayed them. 
Illusion had been spread around all earthly things ; 
man was deceived by a power above and without 
him; and he was irresponsible, seeing that the 
impulse of his conduct was beyond his control. 
It was hopeless to attempt to reconcile the doctrines 
of predestination and free will, the choice of good 
or evil, and a system of rewards and punishments 
with the fixed decree of an unchanging destiny; 
and the attempt was probably made in order to 
account for the inequalities, the sorrow, and suf- 

146 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

fering of human life, the perplexity of which had 
lain at the root of. the Hindu doctrine of the trans- 
migration of souls. 

It is not possible here to discuss the dogmas of 
Sikhism as expounded by Nanak in more detail. 
He was a true prophet, and accomplished worthily 
an exalted mission. His system, like all systems, 
had many imperfections; and chief of them were 
those which equally belonged to Calvinism, in 
the substitution of one tyranny for another, and 
the overshadowing of all human joy by a predes- 
tined lot which no faith or virtue could modify. 
But the good far outweighed the evil. Nanak 
taught the wisdom and omnipotence of one supreme 
God, and the equality of all men, of whatever race 
or creed, in His sight; purity of life, charity, hu- 
mility, and temperance. He enjoined kindness 
to animals, and forbade both female infanticide 
and the burning of widows. He condemned 
idolatry and asceticism, and preached the whole- 
some doctrine that the state of the worker and 
householder was the most honorable condition, 
and that, to find God and serve Him, it was not 
necessary to practise austerities or retire from 
active life. His object, in which he largely suc- 
ceeded, was to purge Hinduism of the dross which 
had gathered about it; to lift it from the slough 
of polytheism and vain ceremonial in which it was 
choked, and to bring it back to the firm ground 
and the pure air of the Vedas. His mission, at 
the close of the fifteenth century, was the same 

147 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

as that of Raja Lai Mohan Roy and Ke^shab Chan- 
dar Sen in the nineteenth; but his originaUty was 
the greater, for his impulse was not, like theirs, 
the necessary result of contact with European 
culture and modes of thought, which are largely 
and beneficially affecting Hinduism. The mis- 
sionary teaching of Christianity affects educated 
Hindus little if at all ; but the science and literature 
of the West are playing an important part in purify- 
ing Hinduism of its materialism, and bringing it 
back to its ancient monotheism, or to that state 
of suspension of judgment which is somewhat in- 
adequately designated agnosticism. 

The successors of Nanak, who held the Guruship 
from 1538 to 1675 A.D., were of far inferior capacity 
and disinterestedness, and do not require much 
mention. It was the fourth Guru, Ram Das, who 
founded the famous city of Amritsar, and built the 
Golden Temple in the middle of the Tank of Nectar, 
thus giving to the Sikh people a centre for wor- 
ship; while Arjan, the fifth Guru, systematized 
the theocracy, collected taxes, and assumed some- 
thing of the state of a secular ruler. His death 
was due to the tyranny of the Mohammedan 
government, which then, from its capital of Delhi, 
ruled the greater part of the Indian peninsula; 
and from that date, 1606 A.D., commenced an 
obstinate quarrel between Sikhs and Moham- 
medans, which continued until, in the general 
crush of the Mogul Empire, at the beginning 
of the present century, the former seized supreme 

148 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

power in the Punjab. Nor is the hostihty be- 
tween them at an- end at the present day, and the 
Sikh warriors, in 1 857, followed the call of the 
English to Delhi and Lucknow, to avenge their 
slaughtered prophets and co-religionists of days 
long past. The stern measures of repression 
which the Moslem governors employed against 
the Sikhs were in some measure justified by the 
turbulent character of these sectaries who lived by 
plunder and levied contributions upon all who 
were not of their persuasion. But the fierceness 
of their hatred of Mohammedanism and its steady 
flame were due to the religious bigotry of the Em- 
peror Aurung-Zeb, who considered it a sacred 
duty to destroy all who would not accept Islam, 
and whose savage fanaticism hastened the decay 
of the Mogul power. No creed endures the foun- 
dation-stones of which have not been cemented 
with blood; and the persecutions of Aurung-Zeb 
only united the Sikhs more closely in resistance 
to his rule, until at last a man arose among them 
who possessed spiritual authority and organizing 
power, and who changed the whole complexion 
of the Sikh creed. This was Govind Singh, the 
tenth and last Guru, who, on the martyrdom of 
his father, became leader of the sect till his death 
in 1708. The changes introduced by Govind, 
though fundamental, were not doctrinal. He 
was, indeed, no quietist like Nanak, but a man of 
action, animated by the passion of revenge. The 
monotheistic theory he did not dispute; but his 

149 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

patron saint, so to speak, was the fierce goddess 
Durga, to whom he is said to have offered a human 
sacrifice to inaugurate his mission. He formed 
the Sikhs into a miHtary brotherhood under the 
name of the Khalsa. He aboHshed caste altogether, 
which Nanak had never ventured to do; and, al- 
though this offended many of the better classes, 
it was received with enthusiasm by the lower orders, 
who flocked to his standard. He instituted an 
initiatory rite of baptism, known as the pahul, 
a feast of communion, and a distinctive dress to 
distinguish his disciples from other Hindus. Sikhs 
were forbidden to cut their hair or beard, to gamble, 
or to smoke tobacco; but intoxicating liquors were 
allowed, and the richer classes have always been 
hard drinkers, though the peasants are temperate 
enough. No regard was to be paid to Vedas, 
Shastras, or the Koran, neither to Hindu priests or 
Mohammedan mullahs; visits to temples and 
shrines and the observance of Hindu ceremonies 
at birth, marriage, and death were alike forbidden. 
The mild law of Nanak was transformed into a 
gospel of intolerance and hate, directed not only 
against his bitter enemies, the Mohammedans, 
but against the members of all alien creeds and 
non-conforming Sikh sects, of which several had 
arisen. But the Mohammedans were the chief 
objects of Sikh hatred. To salute one of the ac- 
cursed race was a crime worthy of hell, and the 
lifelong duty of the Sikh was to slay Mohamme- 
dans and wage constant war upon them. The 

150 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

results of this teaching and practice turned the 
Punjab, for a hundred years, into an arena of 
bloodshed. Mohammedan conquerors from cen- 
tral Asia and Afghanistan swooped down upon 
the dying Mogul Empire, and occupied the north- 
ern capital, Lahore, and established viceroys and 
governors. But, with varying fortunes, the con- 
flict with the Sikhs always continued, until it was 
finally decided by the gradual conquest of the 
Punjab by Maharaja Runjit Singh. 

Of all the men who carved principalities out of 
the inheritance of the emperors of Delhi, the most 
remarkable was Runjit Singh. He possessed the 
genius both of war and of government. The 
son of the chief of one of the smaller Sikh military 
confederacies, he attacked and overcame all rivals 
and competitors of his own faith, and then turned 
his sword against the Mohammedans, annexing 
in turn the Afghan provinces of Multan, Kashmir, 
Peshawur, and the Derajat, which is the name 
of the long strip of plain country that lies between 
the Indus and the mountains on the northwestern 
frontier of Hindostan. In the Afghans he met 
an enemy equal to the Sikhs in bravery and fanat- 
icism; the contest was for many years undecided, 
and cost the Maharaja heavily, both in men and 
treasure. But the discipline and arms of the 
Sikhs gave Runjit Singh the final advantage; 
and, at his death in 1839, he was the undisputed 
ruler of the Punjab and Kashmir. 

Those who care to know in more detail my es- 
151 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

timate of Runjit Singh, his character, his mode 
of government, his counsellors, his army, and 
his conquests, may find it in his biography, which 
I wrote in 1892 for the University of Oxford. There 
is only space here to note the influence of his reign 
on the religious side of Sikhism. This was partly 
good and partly evil. The fierce intolerance of 
Govind Singh was abandoned by the Maharaja 
for an absolute indifference to religion, further 
than was necessary to retain the allegiance of the 
Sikhs and secure the personal adherence of their 
religious guides, Babas and Bhais, whom he 
largely subsidized and treated with every outward 
mark of respect. But in his eyes the creed of his 
servants mattered nothing, so long as they served 
him well. Several of his most trusted and capable 
ministers were Mohammedans, and many were 
Brahmins, whose employment Govind Singh 
had distinctly forbidden. The Sikhs, chiefs and 
people, were plain soldiers, utterly illiterate; and 
no place could be found for them in a system of 
government so complicated as that of the Maharaja, 
where Brahmins and Mohammedans of education, 
experienced through long generations in all the 
arts of government, were necessary to the main- 
tenance of his position. Even in the army, the 
same spirit of tolerance was found. Diwan Mok- 
ham Chand, a Khattri Hindu, was probably his 
best general; and Irish, Italian, and French officers 
trained and led important divisions of his forces. 
This tolerance in matters of religious belief 
152 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

removed the darkest blot from the ferocious creed 
of Govind, and allowed the Sikhs to enter the 
community of reasonable and civilized men; for, 
during the eighteenth century, their hand was 
against every man, and plunder and slaughter 
were the law of their being. This reform, selfish 
though it was in its origin, so modified and elevated 
the Sikh polity and character that its advantage 
far outweighed the injury to public decency and 
morality which may have resulted from the violent 
and treacherous character of the monarch or the 
drunkenness and profligacy of his life. Morality 
is conventional, and condiict must be judged by 
the standard of the age and the environment of 
the individual. Maharaja Runjit Singh, in spite 
of his faults, was a really great monarch, and, 
like Peter the Great of Russia, who was far more 
coarse and cruel, he created a state and a nation. 
The ignorant and brutal Sikh peasants became, 
by the inspiration of his genius, the most formi- 
dable armed force that India had seen during the 
nineteenth century. Every adult male was a 
soldier ; and, if the religious fervor was not so keen 
as in the days of Govind Singh, a strong national 
spirit, almost unknown in India before, had suc- 
ceeded and supplemented it. Had the great 
Maharaja lived in other days, the warlike Sikhs, 
with such a leader and inspired by so high a spirit, 
might well have founded an empire co-extensive 
with that of the Moguls. But the time was in- 
auspicious; the Maharaja died prematurely, ex- 

153 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

hausted by excesses, and the kingdom which he 
had so laboriously built up collapsed. 

It was but a short time after his death, in 1 839, 
that the folly and weakness of his successors 
brought about a collision with the British power, 
which, in a hundred years, with the irresistible 
force and sureness of a rising tide, had spread 
over Hindostan from Calcutta to the river Sutlej, 
and in whose advance the Maharaja had clearly 
foreseen and predicted the overthrow of the Sikh 
monarchy. During his lifetime he had anxiously 
and consis-tently maintained friendship with Eng- 
land, and though at times his ambitious schemes 
led to friction and complaint, yet the loyal deter- 
mination of the two governments to preserve peace 
was effectual. But at his death the powerful 
army he had perfected, trained, and placed under 
the command of French and Italian generals of 
repute, restrained no longer b3^ fear and loyalty, 
broke into mutiny, seized the supreme power in 
the state, and at last crossed the frontier and de- 
clared war against the British government. The 
campaign which followed was exceptionally severe 
and bloody. Never before in India had the Eng- 
lish met an enemy so formidable — a disciplined 
army with weapons equal to their own, and an 
artillery more numerous and powerful. After a 
series of hotly contested battles, in which more 
than once victory was perilously near defeat, the 
English entered Lahore in triumph, and com- 
menced the experiment, always doubtful and 

154 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

dangerous in the East, of a puppet monarch and a 
necessarily ineffective control. This sure recipe 
for disaffection and intrigue brought about a fresh 
revolt of the Sikh army, which had no desire to 
beat its swords into ploughshares before it had 
made another trial of strength with the English. 
The ensuing campaign, as severe as, but briefer 
than, the first, was decisive, and the whole of the 
Punjab was annexed to the British dominions in 
1849. The Sikhs, like gallant soldiers, accepted 
the inevitable without bitterness. Their national 
sentiment was not outraged by the result of a 
contest in which they had honorably striven, on 
almost equal terms, with the power which had suc- 
cessively overthrown all the great military organ- 
izations of Hindostan, and which was careful to 
allow them as free and full expression of Sikh 
teaching and practice as the Maharaja himself; 
which willingly enrolled their disbanded soldiers 
in its own armies, and renewed and confirmed 
the endowments of their beloved religion. From 
that day to this the Sikhs have shown themselves 
the most loyal and devoted subjects of the Queen. 
When the Bengal army, in 1857, was driven into 
mutiny by the crass stupidity and criminal care- 
lessness of the military authorities, the Sikh ma- 
harajas, chiefs, and people sprang again to arms, 
and fought with the utmost gallantry by the side 
of the British, whom they had learned to respect. 

Fifty years have passed since the annexation of 
the Punjab, and it will be interesting to know 

155 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

what kind of men are the Sikhs of to-day; how 
far civiUzation and education and orderly govern- 
ment have affected or modified their characteristics, 
and how the later phase of their religion, as taught 
by Govind Singh, has fared in the uncongenial at- 
mosphere of peace. I have long lived among the 
Sikhs, and w^as chief magistrate of their principal 
districts of Lahore and Amritsar; and during 
several years I was officially employed in writing 
the histories of the independent chiefs and nobles 
of the Punjab. Indeed, at one time, there was 
scarcely a single Sikh of position with whom I 
was not personally acquainted. My experience 
is that no one can live in intimate relations with 
the Sikh people, chiefs or peasants, with any other 
feeling than confidence, respect, and affection. 
They are a singularly sincere, simple, and warm- 
hearted race, susceptible to kindness and giving 
a most loyal service to those whom they trust. 
This description applies not to Sikhs alone, but 
to the great agricultural tribe of Jats, from which 
the Sikhs were mostly drawn, and in which they 
are often re-absorbed. The Jats are the most 
important people in the Punjab, and are widely 
spread from Delhi to the Indus. Nearly connected 
with the Rajputs in origin, they have many char- 
acteristics which separate them from that noble 
stock, for they are almost universally employed in 
agriculture, which the Rajputs, as a rule, dislike 
or despise. But the Jats are the backbone of the 
revenue-paying population, peaceful, when not ex- 

156 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

cited by fanaticism or oppression, self-restrained, 
sober, industrious, and independent. Their love of 
freedom and independence is their most striking 
characteristic, giving them an open and manly 
frankness which invites the sympathy of English- 
men, with whom they have so much in common. 

The value of the Sikhs as soldiers has an im- 
portant bearing on the future of the British Em- 
pire in the East, not in India alone, but in all other 
regions in which native troops can be profitably 
emplo3^ed; and it is an interesting question to 
determine how far the modern conditions of the 
Punjab affect the military qualities of the Sikhs 
and the adherence of new disciples to the Sikh 
creed. For it must be remembered that Sikhism 
is a matter of profession and election, not of he- 
reditary necessity, like the caste s^^^stem of Brah- 
minism. The baptism of initiation is not ordi- 
narily administered to the sons of a Sikh until they 
are adult, never before the age of seven years, while 
to women, except in rare cases, it is not given at 
all. It will be obvious that there no longer exist 
the same strong impulse and attraction to Sikh- 
ism as in the time of Govind Singh, or still more 
during the reign of Run jit Singh, when every 
Sikh was a favored member of a dominant class. 
The change of tendency was very marked in the 
first census taken in the Punjab after annexation, 
when the number of recorded Sikhs was small; 
though too great stress should not be laid on statis- 
tics at such a time, when concealment of creed may 

157 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

have been due to doubt as to the treatment the 
Sikhs would receive from their new rulers. When 
it was found that the British bore no animosity tow- 
ards them, and that, on the contrary, they were 
anxious to utilize so admirable a fighting race, 
the numbers who presented themselves for initi- 
ation rapidly increased; and, in the five districts 
where Sikhs most abound, the numbers recorded 
in 1868 and 188 1 were three times as great as in the 
first census. Other causes assisted to stimulate 
the religious impulse. The Indian mutiny, during 
which all Sikh recruits were welcomed to the British 
army, gave an impetus to the creed, and the Pax 
Britannica which has been observed for so many 
years within the borders of Hindostan has not pre- 
vented the Sikhs from enjoying plenty of fight- 
ing in other parts of the world. In Afghanistan 
and on the northwest frontier, in China and the 
Soudan, the Sikhs have always been in the van 
and have covered themselves with glory; while 
in Burma, Singapore, and Hong-Kong they form 
an admirable body of military police. Among 
the fighting races of the world, the Sikhs hold a 
very high place, nor do I believe that for the highest 
qualities of soldiers there are any their superiors. 
Led by British of&cers, I believe Sikhs to be far 
better troops, steadier, and more intelligent than 
the majority of those found in European armies. 
The Gurkhas are equally good, but of these the 
number of recruits is limited. The value of the 
Sikh is increased by his freedom from caste prej- 

158 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

udice, which permits his employment bej^ond the 
sea or in conditions where the Brahmin, the Rajput, 
or the ordinary Hindu would find it impossible 
to live without incurring social ostracism. The 
Sikh is as gallant and impetuous in attack as he 
is imperturbable in defence or reverse. Exceed- 
ingly temperate and enduring, the severest hard- 
ships are borne cheerfully and without complaint, 
and he is always ready to risk or sacrifice his life, 
without a thought, when led by officers who are 
worthy of him. No praise which can be given to 
this incomparable soldier is above his deserts. At 
the same time, it must not be supposed that the 
Sikhs collectively are such a fighting race as in 
the days of the great Maharaja. Soon after an- 
nexation, the Punjab was disarmed in the interests 
of public order, and the men w^ho had been accus- 
tomed to redress their own wrongs with the sword 
which himg ever at their side were compelled to 
carry their complaints to the courts of law, and 
to find in the discipline of the regular army the 
safety-valve for their martial enthusiasm. So it 
happened that a very large number of the Sikhs, 
peasants and land-holders, gave up their fighting 
habits, and became again peaceful agriculturists, 
one or two members of the family taking the pahul 
and joining the army, with the warlike afi&x of 
Singh to their name, the others remaining Hindus 
and not to be distinguished by dress or mode of 
life from their Jat kinsmen, among whom they 
lived. But the Sikh fighting quality has in no 

159 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

way deteriorated, although the available quantity 
has become less. 

The religious ardor of the Sikhs, under the dis- 
cipline of the regular army and the orderly progress 
of civil life, has become an almost burdensome 
encumbrance and in no way enhances their value 
as soldiers. Its decline is only to be regretted 
in that it diminishes the number of recruits to the 
military caste, for the Hindu Jat peasant, al- 
though equally stanch with the Sikh, has not 
the same inclination to warlike pursuits and pre- 
fers to cultivate his ancestral fields. Day by day, 
the new faith of Govind loses its hold over the peo- 
ple, and the old creed of Hinduism, with its Brah- 
minical sacerdotalism and its worship of strange 
gods, is taking its place. The Sikh still, from 
time to time, visits the temple to listen to the read- 
ing of the Granth; he abstains from tobacco and 
leaves his hair and beard unshorn, while his ob- 
servance of caste restrictions is lax, and he is con- 
tent to take food from even the hands of a Moham- 
medan. But the Brahmin has now again be- 
come an object of reverence and is called to 
officiate at births and marriages; the men, and 
especially the women, always most superstitious 
and most ready to accept priestly control, visit the 
idol temples and local shrines; and, in those dis- 
tricts of the Punjab most distant from the religious 
centre there is little to distinguish the Sikh of to- 
day from the ordinary Hindu. This laxity in 
faith gave rise, some thirty years ago, to a move- 

i6o 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

ment which caused some anxiety to the govern- 
ment, when a carpenter, named Ram Singh, found- 
ed a new sect, the Kukas, and attempted to draw 
his co-reHgionists back into the path of orthodoxy. 
He preached Govind Singh as the only true Guru, 
and insisted upon the abohtion of caste, abstinence 
from animal food, tobacco, and intoxicating liquors, 
free intermarriage and the neglect of Hindu priests 
and temples with all their idolatrous symbolism. 
So long as the Kuka teaching only aimed at re- 
ligious reform, the government did not interfere, 
although respectable citizens were scandalized at 
the debauchery which prevailed in the Kuka mixed 
assemblies. But when, like Govind Singh, they 
changed religion into a political propaganda, 
proclaimed the restoration of the Khalsa and the 
overthrow of the British government, and pro- 
ceeded to insurrection and murder, the sect was 
suppressed with a heavy hand; the leaders, ar- 
rested in one night throughout the province, were 
deported to Burma, Aden, and the Andamans, 
and the Kuka revival, after a short time, was heard 
of no more. But, although religious fanaticism 
always contains the germs of possible danger, it is 
a matter of regret that Sikhism, which, as taught 
by its first prophet Nanak, was so full of promise, 
and was inspired by a pure moralitj^ and a high 
conception of the Deity, should fall back again into 
the idolatrous materialism from which for a time he 
had raised it. But the recuperative and absorbing 
power of Brahminism is very great. History 
L i6i 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

records how it overthrew and expelled the creed of 
Buddhism from Hindostan, and it seems about to 
repeat the process with Sikhism. 

For the British government of India it is desirable, 
so far as may be practicable, to stimulate and 
encourage the life and growth of a martial spirit 
in the fighting races of India. They form an in- 
valuable reserve of military power, which may be 
counted upon with confidence so long as the ad- 
ministration is popular and commends itself to the 
conscience of the people as just and beneficent. 
But it is difficult to take any steps which might 
seem to 'favor a sentiment so closely interwoven 
with religious principle and practice, when the 
declared basis of British policy is a strict relig- 
ious neutrality. This has not, it is true, prevent- 
ed the continuance of ancient endowments to the 
temples and shrines of the Sikh, Hindu, and Mo- 
hammedan religions; but the tendency has been 
to reduce and terminate these wherever possible, 
and to withdraw from the state the management 
of all religious institutions. The endowments of 
the Golden Temple at Amritsar are now but scanty, 
and it has lost in great part the rich offerings 
which were made freely by rajas and maharajas 
when they paid their annual visits to the shrine 
around which their bungas, or hostels, still stand. 
The policy of the old East India Company was 
more sympathetic and encouraged the endow- 
ment of the several religions of India — a practice 
to be logically defended on the ground that the 

162 



SIKHISM AND THE SIKHS 

people who paid the taxes and furnished the state 
revenue should have a portion thereof devoted to the 
maintenance of the public worship of the national 
creeds, such as Brahminism, Mohammedanism, and 
Sikhism. But, as the tendency of higher statesman- 
ship grows more agnostic, the less does it seem able 
or disposed to oppose the pressure of an aggressive 
proselytizing spirit, which seems to grow in fervor 
with the absence of resistance; which has caused 
serious evil in China, which threatens trouble in the 
Soudan, and which will be the cause of future dan- 
ger throughout the Eastern world. There can be 
little doubt that a purely secular education is, for 
the great mass of the people, inconsistent with the 
highest realization of the duties of citizenship, and 
that ethical teaching cannot be altogether divorced 
from religious sanctions. All the scientific and 
philosophical religions have a satisfactory ethical 
basis, and a government like that of India, which 
professes to evenly hold the balance between com- 
peting creeds, and which has solemnly promised 
to abstain from pressing Christianity upon its Ind- 
ian subjects, should endeavor, by the liberal, judi- 
cious, and impartial endowment of all religions 
accepted by large sections of the community, to 
conciliate the priestly class, which now stands 
aloof, unfriendly or hostile, and thus promote not 
only lo3^alty to the ruling power, but the growth 
of a higher morality which finds no sufficient sus- 
tenance in the dry and barren teaching of Western 
literature and science. Lepel GriffIN. 

163 



COMTE 



AuGUSTE CoMTE, author of the system generally known as "The 
Positive Philosophy," and of a form of religion consisting of the 
worship of humanity as represented by its greatest men or as con- 
ceived as a personality, was born at Montpellier, France, January 
19, 1798. His family were both Catholic and Royalist, and he 
early exhibited a strong penchant for mathematics, the physical 
sciences, and social problems. 

His mathematical inclinations gained him admission to the 
Ecole Polytechnique, but he was soon expelled therefrom for in- 
subordination, and he then engaged in private teaching. While 
so employed he became dissatisfied with the existing methods of 
knowledge and the existing forms of society; his mind gave eager 
play to speculative theories; and he v/as inspired with the idea 
that he was destined to reconstruct social order. 

The Saint-Simon school of philosophy began to flourish in Paris 
soon after the Revolution of 1815, and one of the youngest of the 
disciples that the founder attracted to him was Comte. About 
1820 the school made public an exposition of the scientific basis 
of its system, entitled Systeme de Politique Positive, that had been 
prepared by Comte. Saint-Simon was only partially satisfied with 
his disciple's work, criticizing it chiefly because it overlooked the 
"religious and sentimental aspect" of his system. 

In 1824 Comte published his own theory of progress from the 
military offensive regime through the military defensive to the 
industrial pacific, which, he held, depended on the transition 
from theological conceptions through the abstractions of meta- 
physics to positive conceptions. "Spiritual reorganization must 
be based on demonstrated truth, not on faith in the invisible," 
he wrote. 

Comte made an unhappy marriage in 1825; began a course of 
seventy-two lectures on Positive Philosophy, which was interrupted 
by an attack of insanity, in 1826; resumed his lectures in 1828; 
and published them in six large volumes between 1830 and 1842. 



COMTE 

For several years he was in comfortable circumstances, but later 
his doctrines drove him from office and employment. He lost his 
professorship at the Ecole Polytechnique, and in his last years 
his main support was voluntary contributions from his admirers 
in France and England. 

Some little time before the death of Saint-Simon (1825) radical 
differences developed between the founder and his most con- 
spicuous disciple, and after the former's death the latter parted 
company entirely with the Saint-Simonians, representing his as- 
sociation with them as having been "rather an interruption of his 
own true intellectual development than a furtherance of it." 

Comte first gave an intimation of a new form of religion, as a 
necessary appendix to his philosophy, in his Discours sur VEn- 
semble du Positivisme (1848), and in the following year he proposed 
a systematic worship by humanity of itself, as represented in its 
greatest men of all ages, in his Culte Systematique de I'Humanitc: 
Calendrier positiviste, ou Systcme General de Commemoration Pub- 
lique. In the latter work he specified twelve men as worthy to 
preside over the twelve months of the year ; for each week he nomi- 
nated subordinate men; and for each day still minor celebrities. 
He also arranged some of the formalities of the new worship. 

His latter years were full of religious mysticism, almost asceti- 
cism. He died in Paris, September 5, 1857. 



POSITIVISM: ITS POSITION, 
AIMS, AND IDEALS 



Positivism is at once a philosophy, a poHty, 
and a reHgion — all three harmonized by the idea 
of a supreme humanity, all three concentrated on 
the good and progress of humanity. This com- 
bination of man's whole thought, general ac- 
tivity, and profound feeling in one dominant syn- 
thesis is the strength of Positivism, and at the 
same time an impediment to its rapid growth. 
The very nature of the Positivist scheme excludes 
the idea of wholesale conversion to its system, 
or of any sudden increase of its adherents. No 
philosophy before, no polity, no religion was ever 
so weighted and conditioned. Each stood alone 
on its special merit. Positivism only has sought 
to blend into coherent unity the three great forces 
of human life. 

In the whole history of the human mind, no 
philosophy ever came bound up with a complete 
scheme of social organization, and also with a 
complete scheme of religious observance. Again, 
the history of religion presents no instance of a 

167 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

faith which was bound up with a vast scientific 
education, and also with a set of social institu- 
tions and political principles. Hitherto, all philoso- 
phies have been content to address man's reason 
and to deal with his knowledge, leaving politics, 
morality, industry, war, and worship open ques- 
tions for other powers to decide. So, too, every 
religion has appealed directly to the emotions or 
the imagination, but has stood sublimely above 
terrestrial things and the passing cares of men. 
A mere philosophical idea, like evolution, can 
sweep .across the trained world in a generation, 
and is accepted by the masses when men of learn- 
ing are agreed. A practical movement, such 
as reform, self-government, socialism, or empire, 
catches hold of thousands by offering immediate 
material profit. Men of any creed, of any opinion, 
can join in the definite point. This has given 
vogue to so many systems of thought, so many 
political nostrums, such a variety of religious re- 
vivals. It has also been the cause of their ulti- 
mate failure, however great their temporary suc- 
cess. They have been one-sided, partial, mutually 
destructive. A religion which ignores science 
finds itself at last undermined and discredited by 
facts. A polity which has no root in history and 
in the science of human nature ends in confusion, 
like the Social Contract or the Rights of Man. 
And a philosophy which is too lofty to teach men 
how to live, or what to worship, is flung aside by 
the passions, emotions, interests of busy men. 

i68 



POSITIVISM 

Positivism insists that the catise of all these 
failures has been the attempt to treat human nature 
in sections and b}' special movements, whereas 
human nature is an organic whole and can onh' 
be treated as an organism of infinite cohesion. 
Positivism is the first attempt to appeal to htmian 
nature synthetically — that is, to regard man as 
equally a logical being, a practical being, and a 
religious being, so that his thought, his energy, 
his devotion may all coincide in the same object. 
The Christian preacher may cry aloud that this 
object is God and salvation. But when he is 
asked to explain the relation of salvation to conic 
sections or to home rule, his answers are vagtie. 
The agnostic philosopher, again, assures us that 
this centre of thought is evolution; btit how the 
devout soul is to worship evolution, or how the 
workman is to better his lot by evolution, are 
problems which the agnostic philosopher finds 
troublesome and idle. The radical reformer in- 
sists on a brand-new set of institutions, and trusts 
that men's beliefs, habits, desires, 3'earnings, and 
religions will soon settle themselves. But this 
is the last thing the}' ever do. Hitherto all philoso- 
phies, all polities, all religions have sought to treat 
human nature as a quack who should treat a sick 
man on the assumption that he had no brain, or 
that his nerves were of steel, or that his stomach 
was to be ignored. They have had successes, as 
nostnmis do have. The Positive synthesis, for 
the first time, provides the harmon}' for thought, 

169 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

activity, and feeling. But, since almost the whole 
of our real knowledge is limited to this planet, and 
certainly the whole of what we can do is so limited, 
and since our best aspirations and ideals are human 
(or, at least, anthropomorphic), it follows that any 
true synthesis of human nature as a whole must 
centre in humanity. That is the key to the power 
of Positivism, and also to its very gradual ad- 
vance. 

That which is nothing unless it be comprehen- 
sive, systematic, synthetic, naturally finds arrayed 
against- it the popular currents of the hour. There 
never was an age so deeply intoxicated with special- 
ism in all its forms as our own, so loftily abhorrent 
of anything systematic, so alien to synthesis — that 
is, organic co-ordination of related factors. Every- 
thing nowadays is treated in infinitesimal sub- 
divisions. Each biologist sticks to his own mi- 
crobe; each historian to his own '' period " ; jhe prac- 
tical man leaves ''ideas" to the doctrinaire, and 
the divine leaves it to the dead worldling to bury 
his dead in his own fashion. Specialism is erected 
into a philosophy, a creed, a moral duty, an in- 
tellectual antiseptic. It is this dispersive habit 
which makes our art so mechanical, our religion 
so superficial, our philosophy so unstable, and 
our politics so chaotic. A movement, of which 
the first aim is to stem the torrent of this disper- 
siveness, naturally finds welcome only with those 
whom our moral, material, and mental anarchy 
has profoundly saddened and alarmed. 

170 



POSITIVISM 

Positivism, then, so far as it is a religion, does 
not seek to be accei)ted on impulse, or by rapture, 
under a gush of devotional excitement. When 
Peter preached, "Repent and be baptized, and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost!'' the 
same day there were added unto them about three 
thousand soids. But Saint Peter cared little for 
science or philosophy, and even less for politics 
and art. Positivism asks to be accepted as the 
result of a great body of convergent convictions, 
or not to be accepted at all. Being a religion, it 
is not a thing to be decided by the authority of the 
learned. Every brain must reason it out for itself ; 
every heart must feel its enthusiasm ; every charac- 
ter must resolve to live and die by it in daily life. 
It is not like a political movement which aims at 
forming a party, a militant league, or a revolution. 
It never appeals to the instinct of combat; it in- 
flames no passion of self-interest; it panders not 
to the spirit of destruction, to the spirit of equality, 
or the love of mockery and satire. It offers nothing 
immediate, no panacea to make every one blissful, 
or rich, or wise. It insists that all reforms must 
be gradual, complicated, spiritual, and moral, not 
material and legislative. It discourages all im- 
mediate and direct remedies for social and political 
maladies, and ever preaches the humble and dif- 
ficult method of progress by mental education and 
moral regeneration. Now, those reformers who are 
ready to sacrifice all their impatient hopes, all royal 
roads to the millennium, all revolutionary dreams 

171 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

for establishing Utopia, such spirits are few and 
rare. 

The problem before Positivism is threefold, 
each side being practically equal in importance 
and also in difficulty. It seeks to transfer religion 
from a supernatural to a scientific basis, from 
a theological to a human creed; to substitute in 
philosophy a relative anthropocentric synthesis 
for an absolute, cosmical analysis; to subordinate 
politics, both national and international, to moral- 
ity and religion. No doubt, in these three tasks 
the religion is the dominant element. The change 
in its meaning and scope is the most crucial in the 
history of human civilization. The change in- 
volves two aspects, at first sight incompatible and 
even contradictory. The one involves the sur- 
render of the supernatural and theological mode 
of thought; the other is the revival, or rather the 
amplification, of the religious tone of mind. 

Positivism, thus, with one hand, has to carry to 
its furthest limits that abandonment of the stiper- 
natural and theological field which marks the 
last hundred years of modern thought, and yet, 
with the other hand, it has to stem the tide of mate- 
rialism and anti-religious passion, and to assert 
for religion a far larger part than it ever had, even 
in the ages of theocracy and sacerdotalism. The 
vulgar taunt that Positivism is anti-religious arises 
from ignorance. The constant complaint of Posi- 
tivism is that religion, in all its neo-Christian 
phases, has shrunk into a barren formula. The 

172 



POSITIVISM 

essence of Positivism is to make religion permeate 
every human action, thought, and emotion. And 
the idea of humanity alone can do this. Deity 
cannot sa^^ ''Nihil humani a me alienum." 
Humanity can and does say this; whereas, in 
logic, the formula of theology — the formula in 
which it glories — is " Omne humanum a me ali- 
enum/' Omnipotence, as such, can have no con- 
cern with the binomial theorem, or a comedy of 
Moliere, or female suffrage, or old-age pensions, 
or a Wagner opera — that is, with ninety-nine parts 
of human life and interest. The result is that 
theological religion has less and less to do with 
human life. If religion is ever to be supreme, it 
must be anthropocentric. 

But, on the other hand, an age so ardently 
materialist and scientific as our own is antipathetic 
to the idea of religion presuming to interfere at all. 
The ordinary agnostic or skeptic, if he abstains in 
public from Voltairean mockery, systematically 
treats religion, even the religious tendency or tone 
of mind, as an amiable weakness and negligible 
quantity. He is little concerned to attack it, for 
he finds it every day more willing to get out of his 
way, and to wrap itself up in transcendental 
generalities. This is the temper which Positivism 
has to subdue. But it finds the scientific and 
positive minds scandalized at the suggestion of 
any revival of religion, while the religious world 
is scandalized by the repudiation of theolog}^ A 
movement having aims apparently so little recon- 

173 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

cilable can only find prepared minds here and 
there to accept it. Yet its strength Hes in this: 
it is the only possible reconciliation of two in- 
destructible tendencies, equally deep-rooted in the 
human mind — the craving for the assurance of 
demonstrable realities, and the craving for faith 
and devotion as the supreme control of human life. 

This summary sketch of the Positivist synthesis 
of thought, feeling, and life is not intended as any 
explanation of it — an elaborate volume could not 
give room for that — but as a mere preliminary to 
dealing with the question I am asked to answer: 
What are the present position, aims, and expec- 
tations of Positivism? 

Well ! Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, 
a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, died in 
Paris about forty-three years ago, having put 
forth his system of philosophy about sixty years 
ago, and having completed his system of polity 
and religion about forty-five years ago. There are 
now organized bodies of men, holding and teach- 
ing these ideas, in most of the parts of Europe and 
also of the transatlantic continent. Speaking for 
England, for which only I am entitled to speak, 
the English groups, not very numerous bodies in 
London and in five or six principal towns, prefer 
to present the Positivist synthesis in somewhat 
different aspects, but do not disagree in any 
essential principle. Some of these groups choose 
to insist on the strictly religious side of the Posi- 
tivist scheme, regarding it as a church in the ordi- 

174 



POSITIVISM 

nary sense of the term, and attempting to put into 
ceremonial practice the cult described in the fourth 
volume of Comte's Politique. This neither Comte 
himself ever did, nor has his direct successor and 
principal disciple done so, nor have Comte's own 
personal friends in France. Without passing any 
opinion upon the ultimate realization of what, for 
my own part, I regard as a striking and interesting 
Utopia, neither I nor my colleagues in the English 
Positivist Committee have felt either the time to 
be ripe for any such undertaking nor the develop- 
ment of our movement to be adequate to make 
any attempt of the kind practical or serious. The 
attempt has led in South America to some farcical 
egotism, and the experiment elsewhere has led to 
no encouraging residt. Personally, I have no 
wish to see the pontifical method carried any 
further, and it has little interest for me. 

For my own part, from the formation by Comte's 
successor in Paris of the English Positivist Com- 
mittee, of which I have been president for twenty 
years, I have alw^ays opposed everything that could 
tend to form ''a sect.'' By ''sect,'' I mean the 
Pharisaical separation of a body of persons from 
their fellow-citizens, valuing themselves on certain 
special observances and living an exclusive life 
of their own. All this is to us so abhorrent that 
we would rather run the risk of becoming too easy 
than of becoming narrow sectaries. Accordingly, 
we have been, from the first, of the world and in 
the world around us; having no shibboleths, no 

175 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

creeds, no tests of orthodoxy, not even any roll of 
membership. We have always been ready to work 
with all humane movements of a kindred sort. 
We have no priests, no recognized form of worship, 
no ritual, and no special canon of adhesion. They 
who choose to come among us to follow our lect- 
ures or to discuss our views are welcome to come. 
Those who help on the work, by labor or by gifts 
in money or in kind, are of us and with us, so long 
as it pleases them to continue such co-operation. 

Everything about our work is voluntary, gra- 
tuitous, open. Newton Hall is, first and foremost, 
a free school; on its notices is written : "All meet- 
ings and lectures free.'' Nothing is paid to those 
who lecture, or demanded from those who attend. 
No questions are asked, no collection is made, no 
seats are paid for or reserved. Those who choose 
to subscribe can do so, without giving any pledge, 
and withdraw when they choose to withdraw. Lect- 
ures in science, in history, in languages, in art, 
even musical training and classical concerts, have 
all been free and public. And tens of thousands 
of men and women have been present from time 
to time who would decline to call themselves Posi- 
tivists, and who might at the time feel little more 
than sympathy and interest. The aim of our body 
has been to form a school of thought, not to found 
a sect; to influence current opinion, not to enroll 
members of a party; to uphold an ideal of religion 
which should rest on positive science while per- 
meating active life. It is an idle question to ask., 

176 



POSITIVISM 

''What are the numbers, or the machinery, of 
such a body?'' 

Newton Hall, opposite the Public Record Office, 
in London, has now been open nearly twenty years. 
It was so named because it stands on the ground 
purchased for the Royal Society by Sir Isaac 
Newton, its president, in 1710; and, during the 
eighteenth century, the Hall, built thereon by the 
Royal Society for its collections, contained the 
first nucleus of the British Museum. There public, 
free lectures on Positivist philosophy, science, mo- 
rality, and religion have been carried on continually 
during autumn, winter, and spring, together with 
classes for the study of mathematics, physics, 
chemistr}^, biolog}^, history, languages, and music. 
The greater names in the Positivist Calendar of 
558 Worthies of all ages and nations have been 
commemorated on special centenaries, those of 
musicians by appropriate musical pieces. In the 
summer months, these lectures have been extended 
in the form of pilgrimages to the birthplace, tomb, 
or residence of the illustrious dead, and lectures 
at the public museums, galleries, and ancient 
monuments. In connection with Newton Hall, 
there have been social parties, libraries, and guilds 
of young men and young women. So far, the 
work of the Positivist body in London has been 
that of a free school and people's institute. 

It may be asked, in what way does such a free 
school differ from many other similar institutions? 
The answer is in the fact that the entire scheme 
M 177 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

of education given in Newton Hall is synthetic and 
organic — concentrated on the propaganda of the 
Positive Philosophy and the Religion of Humanity. 
Leaving it to other movements to promote mis- 
cellaneous information and promiscuous culture 
of a general kind, the aim of all Positivist teaching 
is to inculcate the cardinal doctrines of the Positive 
belief, the central principles of Positive morality, 
and the vital sense of the Human Religion. In 
the first report issued from Newton Hall, for i88l, 
we said : 

" The very existence of Positivism as a scientific system 
of belief depends on the institution of a complete course of 
education and the formation of an adequate body of com- 
petent teachers. There is, on Positive principles, no road 
to stable religious convictions except by the way of knowl- 
edge of real things ; and there is no royal road to real knowl- 
edge other than the teaching of competent instructors and 
the systematic study of science in the widest sense. One 
of the purposes for which Newton Hall has been opened is 
to offer free popular training in the essential elements of scien- 
tific knowledge. Our plan is but one of the many attempts 
around us to found a People's School, It differs from almost 
all of these in the following things : 

" I. It will be, on principle, strictly free ; no teacher being 
paid, and no fee being received. 

" 2. The education aimed at, not being either professional 
or literary, will follow the scheme of scientific instruction laid 
down for the future by Auguste Comte. 

" 3. While having no theological or metaphysical element, 
the entire course of study will aim at a religious — that is, a 
social purpose, as enabling us to effect our due service to the 
cause of humanity, by understanding the laws which reg- 
ulate the world and our own material and moral being." 

In pursuance of this scheme of education, courses 
of lectures have been given by graduates of the 

178 



POSITIVISM 

universities, most of them having been professors, 
examiners, and lecturers in various sciences, arts, 
or history. The courses have been followed, in 
many cases, during the whole of that period, and 
many of the students have obtained a solid general 
education, especiall}^ in the various branches of 
history, biography, and political philosophy. It 
is not pretended that this has been done by any 
large numbers. Other institutions of the kind 
have enjoyed much greater resources and have 
attracted far more numerous attendants. The 
reason is obvious. For one man who has the pa- 
tience or the thoughtfulness to put himself under 
the curriculum of a laborious training, for the sole 
end of obtaining an intellectual and moral guid- 
ance in a definite system, there are always ninety- 
nine who are ready to pick up any desultory, en- 
tertaining, or marketable knowledge which may 
be offered to them without too much mental dis- 
cipline or any distinctive labels. To enter a Posi- 
tivist hall, much less to join a Positivist class, or 
to subscribe to a Positivist fund, requires, in these 
days of prejudice and lampooning, a certain mental 
detachment and a real moral courage. The direct 
object of our courses is to inculcate Positive convic- 
tions with a view to a Positivist life. And as the 
public which is prepared to accept these terms is 
as yet not numerous, our hearers must be rather 
described as ''fit, though few.'' 

If the formation of coherent Positivist convic- 
tions by a scientific education be the first task of 

179 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

such a movement, it is far from being the sole task. 
The control of all action, whether political, economic, 
or international, by moral judgment is a cardinal 
duty imposed on Positivists in all places and at 
all times. Accordingly, for forty years English 
Positivists have ardently supported the just claims 
of labor against the oppression of capitalism, the 
just demand of the people to full incorporation in 
the state, which exists mainly for the use and im- 
provement of the people ; they have maintained the 
just demand of the Irish nation to be recognized 
as an indestructible national unit; they have pro- 
tested against a series of unjust wars and the 
incessant efforts of British imperialism to crush 
out one independent race after another. All this 
is no recent thing. Forty years ago, the founders 
of the Positivist group in England began to take 
public action on behalf of the organized trades 
unions. In 1867 the Positivist Society appealed 
to Parliament through Mr. John Bright, M. P., 
on behalf of the Irish Nationalists; and they have 
never ceased to uphold the same cause. In 188 1 
they appealed to the government to recognize the 
full independence of the Transvaal Republic. 
And to-day they are the first to insist on the same 
policy as that of justice and honor. 

There has never been an unjust annexation or a 
wanton war in Europe, Asia, or Africa within the 
last thirty years when the Positivist body has not 
raised its voice to plead for morality and justice, 
regardless of the popular crj^ for empire and malig- 

180* 



POSITIVISM 

nant sneers at '' Little Englandism/' The record 
of these efforts may be seen in the Essays of 
Dr. R. Congreve, the first to form a Positivist body 
in England; in the Positivist Comments on Pub- 
lic Affairs, 1878-92; and, from 1893 to 1900, in 
the eight volumes of the Positivist Review. In 
an article in the Positivist Comments I wrote: 

" The Positivist Society has no reason to shrink from a 
review of its poHcy over this period under five different ad- 
ministrations. It is a policy independent of party : national, 
patriotic, and devoid of any petty or factious criticism. Its 
sole aim is to plead for the real honor and good of England, 
in the interest of peace, the harmony of nations, respect for 
other races, religions, and honorable ambitions, and mainly 
for the cause of general civilization." 

These Comments over fourteen years, I said : 

" Embody a coherent and systematic policy dealing with 
England's international relations as a whole, and weighing 
the ultimate and indirect effect of each proposed action as 
affecting the peace of the world and the true cause of civiliza- 
tion. It is not a policy of peace-at-any-price, nor of a little- 
England, nor of uninstructed sentiment, nor of any preju- 
dice of creed or race, much less of party, of democratic 
faction, or mischief-making. It is a policy that considers 
the past, and still more the future, and not merely the pres- 
ent — a policy that respects the rights and dignity of other 
nations as much as our own.'' * 

Of course, such a policy as this, publicly pur- 
sued in times of intense social and political excite- 
ment, could not fail to strain the cohesion of the 
Positivist propaganda and to limit its progress. 

* Positivist Review, vol. iv., p. 73. 
181 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

Bound by our most sacred principles to uphold 
definite views of national and international moral- 
ity, we could not fail to encounter the prejudices 
of party, of class, of race, of patriotism, in their 
hours of keenest heat. Though resolutely ab- 
staining from any party entanglement and from 
any criticism of practical applications of principle, 
it was in the last degree difficult to prevent some 
divergences of view, and impossible not to drive 
away thousands of those who were otherwise dis- 
posed to join. No system of thought, no economic 
scheme, certainly no religious movement, ever 
had to meet such inherent obstacles to acceptance. 
A philosophy appeals to thought, but it does not 
meddle with angry political debates. The social 
reformer has his own difficulties, but he does not 
rouse up the passions of politicians, party, and jour- 
nalism. The religious reformer renders unto Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's, and is absorbed in the 
higher interests of the soul and its salvation. But 
Positivism, because it is a polity, as much as it is a 
philosophy and a religion, is continually forced to 
face the most angry storms of popular delirium and 
of political passion. And never so much as to-day. 
Lastly, the distinctive aim of Positivism is to 
promulgate the conception of a real religion based 
on positive science. No religion can be stable or 
dominant if it rests on hypotheses and aspirations, 
which are necessarily dreamy and in constant 
flux. If religion, in our age of realities, is to be 
based on acknowledged proofs, its object must be 

i8^ 



POSITIVISM 

earthly and human. The supreme power, domi- 
nant on earth and over man, of which we have sci- 
entific knowledge is Humanity. And the ideal of 
Positivism is gradually to form the sense of a 
religion of Humanity. 

And this is, also, the main difficulty that Posi- 
tivism has to overcome. Denouncing, as it does, the 
insolent folly of atheism, and also the arid nullity 
of agnosticism, it is yet difficult to convince the 
religious minded that Positivism can be anything 
but a new attack on Christianity and on theism. 
Comte said: ''The atheist is the most irrational 
of all theologians, for he gives the least admissible 
answer to the insoluble problem of the universe.'' 
Neither in open controversy, nor in private medita- 
tion, does the true Positivist hold the belief that 
the Infinite All came about by chance or made 
itself. But the orthodox controversialist per- 
versely confounds him with those who do hold the 
atheistic creed, and this becomes the source of 
rooted antipathy and prejudice. The Positivist 
neither denies creation with the atheist, nor is he 
satisfied, with the agnostic, to boast that he knows 
nothing as to the religious problem. He simply 
says that, whatever higher paths may yet be 
known, the historic conception of Humanity and 
its practical providence offers all the essential 
elements of a religious faith. 

This does not satisfy the theist, and the forms 
of theism are infinitely vague, indefinite, mys- 
tical, or even verbal, almost as numerous as the 

J83 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

individual theists. A well-known man of letters 
thus summed up his creed : ''He fancied there was 
a sort of a something V Any of us might say that, 
and not find it a working religion. It is the very 
definiteness, the undeniable reality of Humanity, 
its close touch upon every phase of human life, 
that repels so many anxious wanderers in the 
limitless wilderness of theology. In these days 
of shallow spiritualism, the weaker brethren will 
cling to anything that is cloudy, unintelligible, 
transcendental. And their practical gods are 
Mammon and Moloch. 

Much less is Positivism an attack on Christianity. 
It is the rational development of Christianity, its 
incorporation with science and philosophy. Not, 
certainly, with the miraculous and supernatural 
dogmas of Christendom, but with the humanity of 
the gospel in its spiritual ideal, and the moral and 
social ideals of the Christian churches. No doubt, 
the Christian ideal is but a fractional part of the 
Positivist ideal, just as the Christian ideal is only 
in touch with a fractional part of human nature 
and man's life on earth. But so far as this Chris- 
tian ideal is honestly human and essentially 
permanent Positivism is destined to give it a vast 
development. But this is not enough for those 
who still hanker after the Athanasian Creed or the 
Westminster Confession, or even some more in- 
scrutable label. 

The human type of religion must radically differ 
from the theological type, for it can have nothing 

J84 



POSITIVISM 

of the violent, ecstatic, sensational character which 
is inherent in monotheism. Positivism is an 
adult and mature phase of religion, primarily ad- 
dressed to adults, to men and women of formed 
character and trained understanding. It is a 
manly and womanly religion, full of manly and 
womanly associations and duties. Hence, it must 
grow gradually, work equally, and be marked 
by endurance, reserve, good sense, completeness, 
more than by passion, fanaticism, and ecstatic self- 
abandonment. When they ask us. Where are 
the tremendous sanctions, spasmodic beatitudes, 
penances, raptures, beatific visions, and tran- 
scendent mysteries of Christianity? we can only 
smile. These things belong to the childhood of 
man, the fairy tale of religion. The "customs'' 
of Dahomey, the sacrifices of polytheism and 
Mosaism disgust the maturity of man. And so 
Christianity will never satisfy the later ages of 
civilization, until it is rational from top to bottom, 
co-extensive with human life, and in close touch 
with our latest culture and all forms of healthy 
manliness and womanliness. Religion is not to 
be forever nourished by mere hysterical emotions 
and vague yearnings for what we cannot ration- 
ally conceive. 

Religion, so reconstituted, will lose much of its 
rapturous and ecstatic character. It will gain in 
solidity, constancy, and breadth. Instead of being a 
thing of transcendental hopes and fears, stimulated 
on Sundays and occasional moments, but laid 

185 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

aside, if not doubted, for the rest of man's active 
time, religion will be a body of scientific convic- 
tions, poetic emotions, and moral habits, in close 
relation with all our thoughts, acts, and feelings, 
and naturally applying to everything we do or 
desire or think. It will be part of the citizen's 
daily life: more social than personal, more civic 
than domestic, more practical than mystical. It 
will give ample scope to the personal, the domestic, 
even the mystical side of human nature, within 
the control of reason and the claims of active duty. 
Religion will thus mean the guidance of right 
living by the light of personal and social duty as 
taught by a systematic sociology. Its creed will 
be a synthetic philosophy, resting on the general 
body of positive science. And its worship will 
be the expression of loyalty to Humanity in all 
its phases, as manifested in its true servants, the 
known or the unknown, the living or the dead, of 
all ages and of every race. 

Frederic Harrison. 



MIRZA ALI MOHAMMED 



MiRZA Ali Mohammed, founder of the Mohammedan sect in 
Persia, whose doctrines have been denominated Babism, was 
born in Shiraz about 1824. Of his family, education, early occu- 
pation, call to found a new sect, subsequent career, and death at 
the hands of a fanatical mob in Tabriz in 1850, Professor Ross has 
given graphic details in the accompanying essay on Babism. 

When Mirza Ali Mohammed undertook to institute a new re- 
ligion, he drew freely upon Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish, and 
Parsi doctrines, and assumed the name first of Bab-ed-Din (Gate 
of the Faith), then of Nokteh (the Point), and later, simply that 
of Bab (Gate). Since his death he has been designated as the 
first Bab, to distinguish him from followers who assumed the same 
appellation. 

He claimed to be not merely a prophet, but a personal mani- 
festation of the Deity; not merely the recipient of a new divine 
revelation, but the focus in which all preceding dispensations would 
converge. All individual existence he regarded as emanating 
from the Superior Deity, by whom it will ultimately be reab- 
sorbed. 

He attached special importance to the number 7, as indicating 
the attributes displayed in the act of creation, and to the number 
19 (in addition to the reasons stated by Professor Ross), which 
he claimed mystically expresses the name of the Deity Himself, 
and is the sum of the prophets among whom the last incarnation 
of the divine nature is to be distributed. It is interesting to note 
that he recognized the equality of the sexes to the extent of pro- 
viding that at least one of the nineteen prophets must always 
be a woman. 

His creed conserved the highest type of morality, forbade con- 
cubinage and polygamy, relieved women of the custom of veiling 
the face, discountenanced asceticism, prohibited mendicancy, and 
taught hospitality, charity, generous living, and abstinence from 
intoxicating liquors and drugs. 



MIRZA ALI MOHAMMED 

Babism was introduced into the United States in 1893, its fol- 
lowers here taking the name of Bahaists, from Baha Ullah, a suc- 
cessor of the first Bab. According to the Federal census report 
on Religious Bodies (2 vols., Washington, 1910), covering the year 
1906, the sect had twenty-four organizations distributed in thir- 
teen States and the District of Columbia, with a total member- 
ship of 1,280, of which women represented about two -thirds. 
There is no regular minister, the conduct of meetings being open 
to any one competent to lead. Every one is welcome to the 
meetings, where the Revealed Words is studied and explained, and 
no one is permitted to receive any pay for teaching or lecturing 
on the doctrines of the sect. In the United States one may be a 
Bahaist while retaining active membership in another religious 
body. It is demanded that Bahaists fully and sincerely accept 
the doctrines promulgated by the founder, "setting aside man-made 
creeds and interpretations, forms, and ceremonies," for "as men 
see God aright, they will see Him alike." Herein lies the unity 
which "is to bring the religious world together under one great 
Tent of Peace." 

Early in 19 12, Abdul Baha, leader of the sect since the death 
of Baha Ullah, his father, in 1892, came to the United States to 
promote the spread of the Babist or Bahaist doctrines. 



BABISM 

The general reader's knowledge of Persia and 
things Persian is usually limited to the bare facts 
that the country is ruled by a Shah, and that in 
times past it has produced one or two poets. Some 
know that Mohammedanism is there the prevalent 
religion; but beyond such knowledge few have 
penetrated. Considering, then, the limitations of 
our general knowledge on the subject of Persia, 
it is a matter of small wonder that a religious move- 
ment in that country, however great its magnitude, 
and however far-reaching its consequences, should 
escape the attention of the Western world. 

In the present article we have to deal with no 
mere religious reformation, but with the founda- 
tion and rise, in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, of a new faith. In its early history, as we 
shall see, it has much in common with Christianity, 
as also in the matter of doctrine, emphasizing, as 
it does, the brotherhood of man, and aspiring to a 
universal reign of peace, love, freedom, and unity 
of belief. 

In tracing the origin and rise of any religion 
whatsoever, it is, where possible, fitting to examine 

189 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the religion or religions which have been in vogue 
at its birth ; for these have, of necessity, always 
served as a starting-point for a new dispensation. 
Thus, for example, for the proper understanding of 
Mohammedanism, it is Judaism (not of the Torah, 
but of the Talmud), Christianity (chiefly of the 
Apocryphal Gospels) and Sabaeanism which we 
must study. In the case of Babism, we must 
examine Mohammedanism from the Shiite stand- 
point, and beyond this a movement known as 
Shaykhism, which, at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, grew out of the Shiite faith. In or- 
der, however, fully to appreciate the exact position 
of Shaykhism, and in its turn of Babism, in their 
relation to Islam, it will be fitting to explain, in 
as few words as possible, the main points of diver- 
gence between Shiism, the state religion of Persia, 
and Sunnism, or orthodox Mohammedanism, as 
practised in Turkey, Egypt, India, and elsewhere. 
The divergences in teaching which divide these 
two factions are more sharply indicated than those 
which separate Protestants from Roman Catholics, 
and their mutual hostility is also greater. The 
principal difference, as is well known, lies in the 
recognition, or otherwise, of all the early successors 
of Mohammed as vicars of God on earth. The 
Sunnis recognize the claims of the first four 
Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, and AH, while 
the Shiites maintain that Ali and his descendants 
were the only lawful successors. The Omayyad 
Caliphs and their successors, the Abbassids, are 

190 



BABISM 

duly cursed by the Shiites, not merely as usurpers, 
but even more vehemently for having put to death 
or persecuted as many as they could of the house 
of Ali. Thus there arose two rival dynasties — the 
Caliphs of the Sunni faction and the Imams of 
theShiite; the former claiming both temporal and 
spiritual power over the Sunni church, while the 
Imams are reverenced as saints, and even worship- 
ped by the Shiites. According to the orthodox 
Shiites, there were twelve Imams, of whom eleven 
lived and died on earth; whereas the twelfth, who 
is known as the Imam Mahdi, disappeared and 
remains hidden until such time as he shall reap- 
pear and inaugurate the millennium. The person 
of this Imam was, from the first, enveloped in mys- 
tery. According to Shiite belief, he disappeared 
from the eyes of men in the year 940 A.D., and 
retired to the mysterious city of Jabulka, where he 
still lives. At first, he continued to communicate 
with the faithful through the medium of certain 
chosen persons, who were known by the name of 
Bab or Gate. Of these Babs, there were four in 
succession, and the period during which they acted 
as the temporary guides of the faithful is known 
as the ''Lesser Occultation.^' On the death of 
the fourth Bab, this apostolic succession came 
to an abrupt end, and thus began the period known 
as the " Greater Occultation.'' 

In the course of centuries, many various sects 
and schools had grown out of the Shiite creed, 
and among these was Shaykhism, which originat- 

191 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

ed early in the nineteenth century in the teaching 
of a certain Ahmed Ahsai. Space will not permit 
us to enter into the details of his teaching. Suf- 
fice it to say that it was characterized, first, by a 
veneration for the Imams which in intensity sur- 
passed that of the most devout Shiites ; and, second- 
ly, by a doctrine known as that of the " Fourth Sup- 
port,'' which maintained that there must ahvays 
be among the Shiites some ''perfect man,'' capa- 
ble of serving as a channel of grace between the 
Hidden Imam and his church. Shaykh Ahmed 
was succeeded at his death by Hajji Sayyid Kazim, 
who held largely attended conferences at Kerbela, 
the principal place of veneration and object of pil- 
grimage of the Shiites. Now, among those who 
attended the lectures of Sayyid Kazim was a young 
man of Shiraz, named Mirza Ali Mohammad, who, 
though very reserved in manner, attracted the 
attention of his teacher by his earnestness and 
grave demeanor. Born of a good family, he had 
apparently enjoyed the advantages of a distin- 
guished education; he showed a great predilection 
for the occult sciences, the philosophic theory 
of numbers, and the like. He, furthermore, had 
opportunities of intercourse with the Jews of 
Shiraz, and through Protestant missionary trans- 
lations he became acquainted with the Gospels. 
He was strikingly handsome, and his charms of 
speech and manner were, it appears from all ac- 
counts, irresistible. At the age of twenty-two he 
married; and by his marriage had one son, who 

192 



BABISM 

died in infancy. He was at this period settled in 
business at Bushire; and, from that port of the 
Persian Gulf, he went to Kerbela and attended, as 
we have said, the conferences of Say3^id Kazinio 
Here he remained for a few months, and then de- 
parted as suddenlj^ as he had come, returning to 
Shiraz. Not long after this, Sayjad Kazim died, 
without, however, nominating a successor; and this 
fact, as will be seen, is of the utmost importance 
in the history of the Bab. 

Shortly after Sayyid Kazim's death, a certain 
Mulla Husayn of Bushrawa3^h, w^ho had attended 
the Sayyid's lectures at the same time as Mirza 
Ali Mohammad, came to Shiraz, and, as was only 
natural, took that opj)ortunity of visiting his former 
fellow -student. The two at once fell to talking 
of the death of their lamented teacher, and referred 
to the strange words he had spoken as death was 
approaching : ''Do 3^ou not desire that I should 
go, so that the truth may become manifest?'' though 
he gave no hint of the manner in which the truth 
should be revealed. At this point in the con- 
versation, Mirza Ali Mohammad, to the utter 
amazement of his friend, suddenly declared that 
he himself was the promised guide, the new in- 
termediary between the Hidden Imam and the 
faithful; in short, that he was the Bab, or " Gate,'^ 
through which men might communicate with 
the Imam Mahdi. Mulla Husayn, though at first 
inclined to doubt, soon came to believe in the truth 
of this declaration with a faith that thenceforth 
N 193 



tiREAt RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

remained unshaken. This manifestation and 
conversion of the first disciple took place on May 
27,, 1844, almost exactly one thousand years after 
the ''Lesser Occultation/' Mulla Husayn at 
once began to spread the ''good news" among 
the followers of Sayyid Kazim, many of whom 
immediately set out for Shiraz, so that very soon 
was gathered round the Bab a devoted band of 
believers, which included, besides the followers 
of Sayyid Kazim, others who were attracted by the 
new faith. The various kinds of persons who 
were thus attracted may be summed up as follows : 

1. The Shaykhis. 

2. Shiites, who believed that the Bab's teaching 
was the fulfilling of the Koran. 

3. Men who saw in it a hope of national reform. 

4. Sufis and mystics. 

To these four classes we may add to-day: 

5. Those to whom the life and teaching of the 
Bab and Beha appeal in a general way; and among 
these must be numbered those AVestern converts 
who do not fall under the next head. 

6. Those who regard Babism as a fulfilment of 
Christianity. 

At this period the Bab had already written several 
works, and these were now eagerly perused bj^ his 
disciples, who, from time to time, were also " priv- 
ileged to listen to the words of the master him- 
self, as he depicted in vivid language the world- 
liness and immorality of the Midlas, or Moham- 
medan clergy, and the injustice and rapacity of 

194 



BABISM 

the civil authoriticvs/' and the hke. He further 
prophesied that better days were at hand. At 
this time, however, he did not openly attack Islam. 
Thus do we find Mirza Ali Mohammad in the first 
stage of his mission, setting forth claims to be the 
Bab, or channel of grace between the Imam Mahdi 
and his church, and inveighing against the cor- 
ruptions of the clergy and the government, by 
whom he naturally came to be regarded with 
suspicion and dislike. Not long after his mani- 
festation, when his fame had already spread 
throughout the country, he set out to perform 
the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was probably in the 
Holy City itself that he, once and for all, freed him- 
self from the prophet's faith, and conceived the 
thought of " ruining this faith, in order to establish 
in its place something altogether differing from it.'' 
He returned from Mecca in August, 1845, pos- 
sessed of more definite aims and ideals with regard 
to his own mission. Meanwhile, the clergy and 
the government had determined that the move- 
ment was dangerous, and that it bade fair to be- 
come more so. Active measures must, therefore, 
be taken for its suppression, while this was yet 
an easy matter. Several of the Bab's disciples 
were, accordingly, seized in Shiraz, and, having 
been bastinadoed, they were warned to desist from 
preaching. On landing in Bushire, the Bab was 
arrested and brought to Shiraz, where he under- 
went an examination by the clergy in the presence 
of the governor of that town. He was pronounced 

195 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

a heretic, and ordered to remain in his house until 
further orders. No very strict watch was, however, 
kept over him, and, Hke St. Paul before him, he was 
visited by and conferred with the faithful. 

In the spring of 1846 he escaped to Ispahan, 
where he remained under the protection of the gov- 
ernor of that town. In the following year this gov- 
ernor died, and his successor in office immediately 
sent the Bab in the direction of Teheran under an 
armed escort. The Shah's ministers, however, 
deeming that the Bab's presence in the capital 
might prove dangerous, gave orders that he should 
be taken off to the distant frontier-fortress of Maku, 
where he composed a great number of works and 
was in constant correspondence with his followers. 
In order to put a stop to this correspondence and 
to set him in closer confinement, the Bab was re- 
moved to Chihrik, whence not long after he was 
summoned to Tabriz, to undergo examination by 
some of the leading clergy in the presence of the 
Crown Prince (afterwards Shah Nasir-ud-Din). 
This examination was, of course, a pure farce and 
the verdict a foregone conclusion. His inquisitors 
hoped to catch him tripping, but their victim drove 
them to exasperation by the attitude of dignified 
silence which he adopted towards their bullying 
questions. Finally, they ordered him to be beaten 
and sent back to Chihrik, where he was now sub- 
jected to such close confinement that he was only 
able to communicate with his followers by means 
of the most peculiar devices : scraps of paper were, 

196 



BABISM 

for example, concealed among sweetmeats or 
wrapped in waterproof and sunk in milk. 

While he was confined in Chihrik his teaching 
underwent some development, for he now declared 
himself to be not merely the Gate leading to the 
Imam Mahdi, but to be the point of revelation, 
the Imam himself. What he had hitherto preached 
in parables only he would now openly proclaim. 
He declared that his mission was not final, and 
spoke of one yet greater than himself who should 
come after, and should be " He whom God shall 
manifest.'' He laid great stress on this point, and 
expressed an urgent desire that men should receive 
the next manifestation better than they had re- 
ceived this one. He further added : " They are to 
remember that no revelation is final, but only 
represents the measure of truth which the state of 
human progress has rendered mankind capable of 
receiving.'' 

We cannot, within the space of an article, enter 
into the question of the philosophic theory of num- 
bers which played so important a part in Babi tenets. 
It must, however, be mentioned that the number 
19, from a variety of causes, is held in especial 
esteem among them. Thus, the year, in the Bab's 
reformed calendar, was composed of nineteen 
months of nineteen days each, and so forth. And 
thus, too, he elected among his followers eighteen 
chosen disciples, whom he called the ''Letters of 
the Living," of whom he, the nineteenth, was 
the " Point of Unity " which completed the sacred 

197 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

number. There was a sort of apostolic succession 
among these ''Letters/' so that when one died 
some other Babi was appointed to his place. The 
Bab composed about a dozen works in all, the most 
important of which was the Bayan, a work con- 
taining a precise statement of all the doctrines 
taught by him during the final stage of his mission. 
It was, in fact, the Babi Bible. 

Leaving the Bab for a while in the prison of 
Chihrik, we must turn to consider the fortunes 
and misfortunes of his now numerous followers. 
Of the eighteen chosen ''Letters/' three fill a most 
conspicuous place in the early history of the Babi 
movement : namely, Mulla Husayn of Bushrawayh, 
who, as we have seen, was the first convert to the 
new faith; Mohammad Ali of Balfarush; and a 
woman named Kurrat ul-Ayn, or "Coolth o' the 
Eyn.'' To no one does Babism owe more for its 
spread throughout Persia than to Mulla Husayn, 
who, during the Bab's confinement in prison, trav- 
elled the whole country over carrying the new 
gospel: visiting, in turn, Ispahan, where he met 
with much success; Kashan, with like result; 
Teheran, whence he was expelled; Nishapur, 
where he made numberless converts, and Meshed, 
where he was seized by the Shah's uncle. He 
managed, however, to escape to Nishapur, whence 
he set out westward with an ever-increasing band 
of followers. 

This was in 1848, a year as eventful almost in 
Persia as it was in the states of Europe. The 

198 



BABISM 

clergy were becoming more and more fearful of 
the growth of the Babi movement, and bitterness 
on both sides was rapidly increasing ; and it must 
be admitted that the Babis, in the excess of their 
zeal, did not hesitate to employ the most insulting 
language towards the orthodox Shiites. Hostilities 
seemed inevitable, and the Mullas were apparently 
on the point of striking the first blow, when, sud- 
denly, in September, 1848, Mohammad Shah died; 
and, the minds of the Mullas being filled with 
thoughts of succession and possible political revolts, 
the Babis were for a moment forgotten. Mulla 
Husayn, profiting by this temporary preoccupation 
of the Mullas, saw fit to proceed into Mazanderan 
and effect a junction of his followers with those 
of Mulla Mohammad Ali of Balfarush, who had, in 
the mean time, been actively and successfully carry- 
ing on the propaganda of the new faith in that 
province. We must now pass to the summer of 
1849, when we find Mulla Husayn and his followers 
shut up within the rude earthworks and palisades 
of a spot known as Shaykh Tabarsi, on the slopes 
of the Elburz Mountains, bidding defiance to the 
Shah's troops. For eight long months did this 
gallant band of Babis, brought up for the most 
part, it must be remembered, to peaceful pursuits, 
hold the royal army at bay. At length, their brave 
leader, Mulla Husayn, having been killed, and 
their provisions exhausted, they surrendered con- 
ditionally to their besiegers, who promised them 
life and liberty. But the royalist of&cers put then^ 

199 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

all to the sword. Soon after this brutal suppression 
of the revolt in Mazanderan, a similar scene was 
enacted at Zanjan, in the northwest of Persia ; the 
same story is repeated of bravery, starvation, 
and death. While the siege of Zanjan was still 
in progress, another Babi rising took place in the 
south of Persia, and the government, being 
thoroughly alarmed, determined to strike at the 
root of the matter, and to put the Bab to death. 

We left the Bab in prison at Chihrik. He was 
now, once more, brought to Tabriz and tried by 
judges who were bent on his condemnation. The 
proceedings were as farcical and undignified as 
those to which he had been subjected on a former 
occasion. In spite of all their threats, he per- 
sistently maintained that he was the Imam Mahdi. 
His judges objected to his claims, on the ground 
that the Imam, whose return they awaited, would 
come as a mighty conqueror, to slay and subdue 
infidels and establish Islam throughout the world. 
To this the Bab replied: ''In this manner have 
the prophets always been doubted. The Jews 
were expecting the promised Messiah when Jesus 
appeared in their midst ; and yet they rejected and 
slew him, because they fancied the Messiah must 
come as a great conqueror and king, to re-establish 
the faith of Moses, and give it currency through- 
out the world.'' 

The Bab and his followers, no doubt, knew as 
well as his judges that his sentence was prede- 
termined; it cannot, however, be doubted that the 

200 



B A B I S M 

authorities entertained some hopes of making 
the Bab recant by means of threats or promises. 
At length, finding these of no avail, they passed the 
fatal sentence, and the Bab was led back to prison, 
to spend his last night in company with two faith- 
ful disciples, who were condemned to die with him. 

On the morning of July 9, 1850, Mirza Ali Mo- 
hammad the Bab, Aka Mohammad Ali, and Sayyid 
liusayn of Yezd were dragged through the crowded 
streets and bazaars of Tabriz. This pitiful proces- 
sion lasted many hours, in the course of which 
Sayyid Husayn fell to the ground from exhaustion 
and pain. He was then told that, should he now 
recant, he might have his pardon. Thereupon — 
whether in a moment of weakness, or, as the Babis 
declare, at the command of the Bab himself, in order 
that he might convey a last message from the master 
to the faithful — he bought his pardon at the price 
of renunciation of the cause, and escaped to Tehe- 
ran, where two years later he suffered martyrdom. 

On the arrival of the two prisoners at the spot 
appointed for their execution, they were suspended, 
by means of ropes passed under their armpits, to 
staples set in a wall. As the order was given to 
fire the first volley, the Bab was heard to say to his 
companion : " Verily, thou art with me in Para- 
dise!'' But when the smoke of the volley, which 
had temporarily hidden the two victims, cleared 
away, it was discovered that while the body of 
Aka Mohammad Ali hung lifeless from the staples, 
riddled with bullets, the Bab had disappeared, and 

201 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the ends of the cords which had supported him 
were alone visible, the cords having been severed 
by bullets just above where the victim's arms had 
been. Here seemed to be a miracle indeed. The 
crowd began to murmur their expression of amaze- 
ment and were prepared to believe anything. Had 
the Bab managed at this moment to get away to 
some place of concealment, he would immediately 
have added to his following the whole population 
of Tabriz, and soon after the whole of Persia. The 
destinies of the house of Kajar, nay, of Islam itself, 
hung in the balance against the new faith. Un- 
fortunately, however, for his cause, the Bab had 
no time to realize this; he was as much surprised 
as the people, and, instead of attempting to hide, 
he ran by a first impulse to the neighboring guard- 
house, where he was soon discovered. Even now, 
for a few moments, the people were still ready to 
believe in a miracle; no one dared approach him, 
for was not his person inviolate? The situation 
was, however, saved, as situations so often are 
saved, by the action of a headstrong fool. A 
soldier, catching sight of the Bab, rushed in upon 
him and dealt him a blow with his sword; and, 
so soon as the people saw blood flowing from the 
wound thus inflicted on the unresisting victim, 
their doubts and fears were at an end, and the 
Bab's death was soon accomplished. Thus died 
the great prophet-martyr of the nineteenth century, 
at the age of twenty-seven, having, during a period 
of six brief years, of which three were spent in 

^02 



BABISM 

confinement, attracted to his person and won for 
his faith thousands of devoted men and women 
throughout the length and breadth of Persia, and 
having laid the foundations of a new religion 
destined to become a formidable rival to Islam. 

His wonderful life needs no comment. If ever 
a life spoke for itself, it is the Bab's, with its sim- 
plicity, integrity, and unswerving devotion to the 
truth that was born in him. Though we of the 
West may not appreciate many details of his teach- 
ing, and though we may fail to be attracted by a 
faith in which the niceties of language, the mys- 
teries of numbers, and the like play so important a 
part, 3'et none of us can help admiring the life 
of the founder of this religion, for in it there is 
neither flaw nor blemish. He felt the truth in him, 
and in the proclamation of that truth he moved 
neither hand nor foot to spare himself, but un- 
flinchingly submitted to all manner of injustice 
and persecution, and, finallj^ to an ignominious 
death. That he should have attracted thousands 
to his cause is perhaps not a matter of such great 
surprise in a country like Persia, where all are 
naturally disposed towards religious speculation, 
and ever ready to examine a "new thing''; but his 
influence penetrated deeper than their curiosity 
and their minds — it reached their hearts and in- 
spired them with a spirit of self-sacrifice, renuncia- 
tion, and devotion as remarkable and as admirable 
as his own. 

Our sketch of the Bab's life has, of necessity, 
203 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

been brief, but enough has, perhaps, been told of 
his career to suggest to all readers a comparison 
with the life of Christ. Those whose curiosity or 
sympathy may lead them to study the Bab^s life 
in full detail will certainly not fail to notice in 
many places the striking similarity which these 
two lives offer. 

In returning to our narrative, we find the last, 
and by no means the least, striking of the coin- 
cidences referred to. For the Bab, too, had his 
Joseph of Arimathaea. The bodies of the two 
victims were thrown outside the city walls, to be 
devoured by dogs and jackals, and a guard was set 
over them to insure against their being buried. 
But, by night, a certain wealthy Babi, named 
Sulayman Khan, came with a few armed com- 
panions, and offered the guards the choice of gold 
or the sword. The guards accepted the gold, and 
allowed Sulayman Khan to carry off the body of 
the Bab, which, after he had wrapped it in fine 
silk, he secretly conveyed to Teheran. 

If the Persian government imagined that, by 
putting to death the Bab, they would put a stop 
to the religious movement of which he was the head, 
they were greatly mistaken. The fortitude dis- 
played by the Bab at his execution served only as a 
stimulant to the devotion and courage of his fol- 
lowers; and thus the government, in ordering the 
death of this innocent man, defeated their own 
ends and gave fresh impetus to the movement they 
hoped to quell, and doubtless added thousands of 

204 



BABISM 

converts to the ''new religion." The year 1850 
witnessed the spiUing of much Babi blood. The 
tragic storj^ of Sha34ih Tabarsi was re-enacted in 
two different quarters of Persia, and in Teheran 
seven Babis were '' martyred " in cold blood at the 
instigation of the prime - minister. Persecutions 
went on steadily throughout the country, and the 
Babis were obliged to maintain the utmost secrecy, 
being continually in danger of their lives. 

In August, 1852, an event occurred which cannot 
be regarded as other than a blot in the Babi annals. 
Three young and overzealous Babis, mastered by 
an uncontrollable desire for vengeance on the 
monarch who had permitted the execution of their 
beloved master, made an unsuccessful attempt on 
the life of Shah Nasir-ud-Din. This act not only 
resulted in the deaths of the would - be assassins, 
but led to the adoption, on the part of the govern- 
ment, of the most rigorous system of inquisition, 
persecution, and torture of their coreligionists. 
Vigorous search was instituted by the police in 
all parts of Persia to discover Babis, and in Teheran 
some forty of them were surprised in the house of 
Sulayman Khan, of whom we have already spoken. 
Most of them, after bravely enduring ghastly tort- 
ures, were put to a cruel death ; so appalling were 
the modes of torture to which these brave men 
and women patiently submitted that we refrain 
from describing them. Among the five or six 
who were spared was Baha Ullah, of whom we shall 
have occasion to speak presently. Among the 

205 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

martyrs were Sulayman Khan, Sayyid Husayn 
of Yezd, who, since he had, at any rate in appear- 
ance, renounced his master two years previously, 
had been eager for martyrdom, and Kurrat ul- 
Ayn, who is one of the most remarkable figures in 
Babi history. We regret that, owing to the exi- 
gencies of space, we are unable here to describe the 
career of this truly great woman, whose life and 
death would call forth our unbounded admiration, 
to whatever age or country she had belonged. Our 
wonder and our admiration must increase a hun- 
dredfold when we remember that she lived in a coun- 
try where for centuries women had been kept in 
the background of the harem, and where they 
lose honor by appearing in public. She was a 
woman of distinguished parentage, remarkable 
alike for her beauty and her learning. Perhaps 
it was the Bab's aim to ameliorate the position of 
women in Persia that first aroused her interest 
in his faith ; however this may be, she soon became, 
and continued till her tragic and noble death, one 
of the most devoted and active of the Bab's disciples, 
and was reckoned, as we have seen, among the 
eighteen ''Letters.'' 

Though it cannot be maintained that these 
would-be assassins of the Shah were the first to 
give a political color to the movement, it is certain 
that their action not merely embittered the ill-feeling 
of the government and the clergy towards the Babis, 
but also furnished a plausible excuse for the adop- 
tion of even stronger measures than had hitherto 

206 



B A B I S M 

been employed to destro^^ the sect, root and branch. 
Thus, in spite of the utmost secrecy which the 
Babis preserved among themselves, they could 
never feel secure from one da3^ to another within 
the Shah's realms. It was on this account that 
their leaders now deemed it wise to fly the coun- 
tr}^ and betake themselves to a voluntary exile 
in Turkish territory; and Bagdad now became 
the heart and centre of the Babi movement. 

At this time the head of the community and 
chief '^ Letter of the Unity'' was a certain Mirza 
Yahya, better known by the appellation of Subh- 
i-Ezel, or the "Dawn of Eternity.'' 

Owing to the continued persecutions of Babis in 
Persia, the little colony of exiles in Bagdad was 
constantly receiving additions to its numbers. 
In order to protect themselves effectually against 
the Persian government, they enrolled themselves 
as Turkish subjects; while their exemplary be- 
havior was rewarded by kind treatment at the 
hands of the Ottoman authorities. 

In 1864, at the instigation of the Persian govern- 
ment, which objected to their proximity to the 
frontier, they were removed first to Constantinople 
and shortly afterwards to Adrianople. It was in 
this town that an important schism occurred in the 
Babi community, which has never since healed. 

During the first fourteen years of exile — that is, 
from 1850 to 1864 — Subh-i-Ezel was the nominal 
head of the Babis and vicegerent of the Bab. That 
he received this office from the Bab himself seems, 

207 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

from documentary and other evidence, to be beyond 
dispute. He laid no claim to prophetic rank. 

Early in 1853 an elder half-brother of his, named 
Beha, fled from Persia and joined the community 
in Bagdad, having, as we have said, come very 
near to martyrdom in the Teheran massacre which 
followed the attempt on the Shah's life. Subh- 
i-Ezel, while at Bagdad, led a life of comparative 
seclusion, and trusted to Beha the business of inter- 
viewing disciples and corresponding with the Babis 
in Persia. At this time, Beha certainly admitted 
the supremacy of Subh-i-Ezel, and claimed no su- 
periority over his coreligionists ; but certain pas- 
sages in a work called the Ikan, which he wrote 
while at Bagdad, leave room for the supposition 
that he already contemplated the idea of putting 
forward that claim which not long after forever 
divided the Babis into two rival factions, the Ezelis 
and the Behais. What were his actual thoughts 
and ambitions with regard to himself it is impos- 
sible to say ; we only know that, in 1866-67, while 
he was living with his exiled comrades in Adri- 
anople, Beha announced that he was '' He whom 
God shall manifest,'' so often alluded to by the 
Bab in his writings. 

Now, had Subh-i-Ezel been disposed to accept 
this claim of Beha, it is not improbable that his 
example would have been followed by the whole 
community. Subh-i-Ezel, however, absolutely de- 
nied Beha's claim, arguing that ''He whom God 
shall manifest" could not be expected until the 

208 



BABISM 

religion founded by the Bab, with its attendant 
laws and institutions, had obtained currency at 
least among some of the nations of the earth. It 
was inconceivable that one revelation should be 
so quickly eclipsed by another. He found many 
Babis who concurred in his views, and were willing 
to remain faithful to him as the legitimate head 
of the Babi Church. The majority of the Babis, 
however, accepted the manifestation of Beha, and, 
in the course of time, their numbers have steadily 
increased, while the following of Subh-i-Ezel is 
constantly diminishing. In fact, to-day it is a 
comparatively rare occurrence to meet with an 
Ezeli, and one which never came within the ex- 
perience of the present writer while travelling in 
Persia or central Asia. 

The dissensions between the rival factions grew 
so fierce that, in 1868, the Turkish government, 
fearing lest this rupture might lead to public dis- 
orders, determined to separate the rival claimants 
to supremacy. They, therefore, sent Subh-i-Ezel 
to Famagusta, in Cyprus, and Beha to Acre, which 
two localities have ever since remained the head- 
quarters of the Ezelis and Behais respectively.* 

It will not be necessary in this place to enter into 
the question of the merits of Beha's claims or 
Subh-i-Ezel's position. The matter has been fully 
set forth by Mr. E. G. Browne in his various works 

* A few Behais were sent to Cyprus and a few Ezelis to Acre. 
The latter were murdered soon after their arrival by some Behais, 
but probably without the knowledge of Beha. 

o 209 



GREAT RE:LIGI0NS OF THE WORLD 

on the Babi movement, especially in the New 
History. Only a very small proportion of the 
Babis to-day belong to the Ezeli faction; so it is 
Acre which now becomes and remains the chief 
centre of interest in the subsequent history of this 
religion. 

It would, in reality, be more accurate to speak 
of the vast Babi community which looks to Acre 
for guidance as Behais rather than as Babis ; for, 
in many respects, their beliefs bear a relation to 
the teaching of the Bab very similar to that of 
Christianity to the Old Testament; for the reve- 
lation of Bella practically abrogated that of the 
Bab. But it may be maintained that Beha's teach- 
ing was even more revolutionary than that of 
Christ; for, whereas Christ came to fulfil the law, 
and whereas the Old Testament came to be em- 
bodied in the Christian Scriptures, Beha has given 
his followers a new Bible which has rendered su- 
perfluous the Bayan. 

The written works of Beha are numerous, and 
an authorized edition of them has been lithograph- 
ed in Bombay in three volumes. Of these, the 
Kitab - i - Akdas is, in many respects, the most 
interesting, and it has the best claim to be regarded 
as the Behai Bible. Beha also wrote a very large 
number of smaller treatises and letters of exhorta- 
tion and encouragement, which are known among 
the faithful as '' alwah " (singular, '' lawh "), or tab- 
lets. All these alwah emanating from Beha were 
and are carefully treasured up and diligently copied. 

210 



BABISM 

They were usually addressed to some prominent 
member of a local community, and, to be the re- 
cipient of one of them, however brief, was considered 
a very high honor. 

From the date of Beha's arrival in Acre, his 
writings begin to assume a very different tone and 
character from those which pervade the Ikan above 
referred to. Seeing that the Kitab-i- Akdas'^ is 
not only the most important of Beha's writings, 
but that it contains a resume of all his teaching, 
it is fitting in this place to present the reader with 
a brief account of some of its contents. 

The book begins with instructions as to religious 
observances. Prayers are to be said three times 
a day. The worshipper is to turn his face towards 
"the Most Holy Region,'' by which Acre is ap- 
parently intended. All congregational prayer is 
abolished, except in the case of the burial service. 
The Babi year, which, as we have said, contains 
nineteen months of nineteen days each, begins on 
the Persian New Year's day. The year contains 
366 days in all, five intercalary days being added. 
Fasting from sunrise to sunset is ordained during 
the last month of the year. 

Mendicity is prohibited in the following terms: 
"The most hateful of mankind before God is he 

* This book was at one time difficult to obtain, as it only exist- 
ed in manuscript. It has, however, been since lithographed in 
Bombay, and is therefore fairly accessible. It is composed in 
Arabic. For the following summary of contents I am indebted 
to an article by Mr. E. G. Browne, without whose admirable writ- 
ings we should know very little of Babism in its late developments. 

211 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

who sits and begs ; take hold of the robe of means, 
relying on God, the Cause of causes/' The use 
of knives and forks in eating, instead of the hands, 
is enjoined. Cleanliness is insisted on. 

Marriage is enjoined on all. Wives who for a 
period of nine months have had no news of their 
husbands are permitted to marry again, but if they 
are patient it is better, '' since God loves those who 
are patient.'' If quarrels arise between a man and 
his wife, he is not to divorce her at once, but must 
wait for a whole year, so that, perhaps, he may 
become reconciled to her. The kings of the earth 
are exhorted to adopt and spread the new faith. 
Wine and opium are forbidden. The sacred books 
are to be read regularly, but never so long as to 
cause weariness. Enemies are to be forgiven, nor 
must evil be met with evil. 

In conclusion, we must quote a very remarka- 
ble passage" with regard to future manifestations, 
which is noteworthy in regard to the position as- 
sumed by his son. Abbas Efendi, to-day : '' Who- 
soever lays claim to a matter (i. e., a mission), ere 
one thousand full years have passed, verily he is a 
lying impostor." 

Beha died in 1892, at the age of seventy-seven, 
in Acre, which town he had never been permitted 
to leave. He was here visited by the faithful, who 
regarded Acre as an object of pilgrimage, and also 
by inquirers. He was regarded by the faithful as 
God Almighty himself, and the respect and rev- 

* To be found on pp. 13 and 14 of the lithographed edition. 
212 



BABISM 

erence the}^ paid him were unbounded. He had 
four sons, of whom the two eldest were Abbas 
Efendi and Aga Mohammad Ah. 

On the death of Beha, Abbas Efendi, as the eld- 
est son, became the spiritual head of the Behais; 
though it appears that his claims to this position 
were not admitted by all, for he found, at the first, 
a rival in the person of a certain Aga Mirza Jan, of 
Kashan, who had been the amanuensis of Beha. 
This rivalry did not, however, have any appreciable 
effect on the position of Abbas Efendi, who receives, 
at any rate from the vast majority of the Behais of 
to-day, a veneration equal to that accorded to his 
father. 

Aga Mohammad Ali, since his father's death, 
has lived a life of retirement and seclusion. It 
is known that he was unable to approve the course 
adopted by his brother. Abbas Efendi; but he has 
always strenuously avoided an open quarrel with 
him, and has refused to give written answers to the 
large number of Babis who were anxious to know 
his views. His main object has been to avoid any 
further division in the Babi Church. 

In conclusion, a few words must be said in re- 
gard to the whereabouts and condition of the Babis 
at the present day. It is impossible to obtain 
reliable statistics as to their actual numbers, but 
one million is probably near the mark. The major- 
ity inhabit the large towns of Persia, such as Te- 
heran, Ispahan, Yezd, and Kerman. Persecutions 
are nowadays of rare occurrence, though the Babis 

213 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

can never feel really secure within Persian territory, 
partly on account of the political stigma which 
attaches to their name, and partly on account of 
the suspicion with which they are regarded by the 
Mullas. Three years ago, Teheran alone was said 
to contain upward of ten thousand Babis, and no 
doubt their numbers have greatly increased in 
the interval. It is hard to say precisely what 
degree of caution they consider requisite, or to what 
extent they are known as Babis to the authorities 
and the populace in general. Certain it is that 
many distinguished persons are known by all to 
belong to this sect, and that they are on this ac- 
count put to no apparent inconvenience. The 
Babis are law-abiding citizens, and ply their busi- 
ness on an equal footing with Mussulmans. No 
Babi, however, who is known to be such, is allowed 
to enter a mosque. They have no places of worship 
of their own, but hold their meetings, generally 
after sundown, in the houses of various members 
of the community. The present writer has at- 
tended many of these gatherings, and has always 
come away deeply impressed by the simplicity, 
earnestness, and courtesy of the Babis. At these 
meetings, a practical example of the Babi principle 
of equality is to be seen. Here we find, side by 
side, a learned doctor, an officer, a merchant, and 
a servant, sitting, as the Persians say, ''on four 
knees,'' intent on discussing the latest news of the 
Babis in other parts of the world; listening to the 
recitation of a poem by some Babi poet, or hearing 

214 



BABISM 

the contents of the latest lawh from Acre. Dur- 
ing the reading of these letters the strictest silence 
prevails, and pipes and cigarettes are for the time 
discarded. In Turkish and Russian territory the 
position of the Babis is one of comparative im- 
munity. Askabad, in Transcaspia, is a very im- 
portant centre, and it is there, perhaps, that the 
followers of Beha enjoy the greatest freedom. 

Finally, we must mention the recent spread of 
this religious movement in non-Mohammedan 
countries, which is practically confined to the 
United States of America. From the latest in- 
formation, it would appear that no less than three 
thousand Americans now subscribe to the new faith. 
The propaganda first began in 1893, at the World's 
Congress of Religions in Chicago, when a certain 
Babi, named Ibrahim Kheirallah, who had come 
to the United States on business, gave a course of 
fifteen lectures on Mohammedanism and the va- 
rious movements which had grown out of it. In 
the course of these ''lessons,'' he continually re- 
ferred to the teachings of the Bab, and in a short 
time he is said to have secured over one hundred 
''believers." He next proceeded to New York 
City, where he published his lectures. Such were 
the beginnings of Babism in the United States. 

Of the subsequent history of the movement in 
America it is at present hard to speak. At all 
events, it seems that here, too, the division between 
Abbas Ef endi and Aga Mohammad Ali has been at 
work, and that the first Babi missionary, Kheiral- 

215 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

lah, belongs to the party of the latter. The follow- 
ers of Abbas Ef endi, who believe him in all sincerity 
and devotedness of faith to be the incarnation of 
God, are known as the Sahitis, or the ''Firm/^ 
while those who deny his claims have received 
from their opponents the name of Nakizis, or '' Ad- 
versaries/' The principal Babi centres in the 
United States are as follows : Chicago, about one 
thousand; Kenosha, Wis., from four hundred to 
five hundred; New York City, about four hundred; 
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia; Wilming- 
ton and Belle vue, Del. ; Newark. Fan wood, and 
Hoboken, N. J.; Brooklyn and Ithaca, N. Y.; 
Detroit, Mich. ; Boston, Cincinnati, San Fran- 
cisco, and Denver. 

Babism, though still, as it were, in its infancy, 
is said to count to-day over one million adherents, 
and the possibilities of its future success are in- 
finite, for, in spite of internal schisms and external 
disabilities, there is no falling off either in the 
number of fresh converts or in the religious fervor 
of believers. 

E. Denison Ross. 



JUDAISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

The twentieth century opened with two noteworthy problems 
before the Jews of the world — the continuance of the distressing 
conditions of their co-religionists in Russia, and the more ambitious 
movement for an independent nationality in Palestine. The 
former was sharply accentuated by the action of the United States 
in 191 1, when Congress authorized the President to abrogate the 
Russo-American treaty of 1832, practically because Russia per- 
sisted in refusing to recognize passports issued to native or natu- 
ralized Jews of the United States. 

Several times prior to this action the American citizenship had 
been aroused to vigorous but unofficial protests by narratives of 
massacres and persecution of Jews, because they were Jews, in the 
Tsar's domain. Once, indeed. Congress authorized the presenta- 
tion to the Tsar, through diplomatic channels, of an enormously 
signed petition, begging him in the name of a common humanity 
to cause a cessation of ill-treatment and otherwise to ameliorate 
the condition of the Jews in his realm. The Russian authorities, 
however, declined to present the petition to the Tsar on the ground 
that it constituted a foreign invasion of Russia's national affairs. 
Despite the first result of this attempted intercession, its effect 
was not lost, as a knowledge of the petition, its contents, and the 
action of the American authorities were speedily spread through- 
out the world. 

The Zionist movement assumed a new and unexpected phase 
in 191 1, when, at the tenth Zionist Congress, in Basle, Switzer- 
land, there appeared to be a complete abandonment of the project 
to set up a separate State in Palestine, through a charter to be 
procured from the Sultan of Turkey. In its stead the delegates 
favored the idea of becoming merely "a prosperous Jewish people 
in a prosperous Ottoman empire." 

The National Fund Commission, the active agency of the Zion- 
ist movement for regaining the Holy Land for the Jewish people, 
reported that, in addition to the thirty-eight agricultural colonies 



JUDAISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

it had established in Palestine, it had developed a residential sub- 
urb for artisans close to the port of Jaffa. The Commission 
further proposed to purchase one hundred thousand acres of land 
annually in Palestine for other colonies. 

Professor Warburg described the results of the work done in 
Palestine in twenty years, without political or diplomatic influence. 
Some of them are: a bank established at Jaffa; farms and olive 
and orange plantations laid out and cultivated with pecuniary 
success ; an agricultural experiment station founded by an American 
philanthropist at Haifa; and a technical school, national library, 
museum, and bacteriological and hygenical research bureau, all 
under construction at Haifa. The population of Palestine was 
placed at six hundred thousand, of whom one hundred thousand 
were Jews engaged in agriculture or the manufacture of oil, soap, 
and cement. 

In view of the apparent abandonment by many of the Zion- 
ists of the project for an independent Jewish State in Palestine, it 
is interesting to note that the hope of the Jew of the present day 
lies in the United States rather than in Palestine, according to 
Prof. Israel Friedlander, who declared: 

"Those who are in a position to compare Jewish conditions in 
other lands are convinced that America offers exceptional oppor- 
tunities for the development of Zionism." 
And: 

"Not only does the liberty embodied in the American Constitu- 
tion guarantee full and unrestricted scope for our activities, but 
the ideal of liberty as conceived by the American people, with its 
admiration of self-help and self-assertion, will also secure for us 
the warm applause of our Christian fellow-citizens, to whom Zion 
is no less a word full of hope and meaning." 

In 19 1 2 religious statisticians estimated the number of Jews in 
the world at 11,463,876, of whom 8,876,299 were assigned to 
Europe and 1,880,579 to America. Russia was credited with the 
largest number, 5,215,805; Austria-Hungary with 2,200,000; 
Germany with 600,000; and all other countries with less than 
500,000 each. 



JEWS AND JUDAISM IN THE 
NINETEENTH CENTURY 



The light of the nineteenth century, passing 
through the Jewish prism, throws a pecuHar spec- 
trum upon the screen of modern history. The 
colors are not exactly those of the rainbow, nor 
is the prism akin to the solid, polished, and trans- 
parent glass through which the light is beauti- 
fully separated; it is the troubled Jewish mind 
through which it passes, and the image seen on the 
screen is accordingly different. It begins with the 
roseate hues of hope, to which succeed the deeper 
red tints of enthusiasm, and it closes with the yellow 
of despair. To drop the metaphor, a survey of the 
sequence of vicissitudes through which the Jews 
have passed during the last hundred years is like 
writing the history of the most noteworthy changes 
in the history of modern civilization, and of the 
different moods and ways in which they have 
affected one peculiarly receptive portion of human 
society. 

The Jews do not merely live in the midst of other 
nations, but they also live with those nations and 

219 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

share with them in all the emotions of the spirit 
and in all the trials of the body. It is a fallacy 
to assume, as is often done, that the Jews live a 
secluded life, and that the Jews of one country 
are identical in every respect with those of other 
countries, whose civilization and the conditions 
of whose life are dissimilar. The differences be- 
tween the German and the French Christian will 
be found to exist also between the German and 
the French Jew, though not manifested in the 
same manner. Assimilation has constantly been 
going on, and participation in the same national 
characteristics, between Jew and Christian, though 
not on identical, but at least upon parallel lines. 
The study of the Jew in various countries brings 
this fact out forcibly. We are sure to find in each 
a more or less faithful reflex of the national pecu- 
liarities characteristic of each of those countries; 
a reflex, but not an exact copy; a translation, but 
not a facsimile. In this process of adaptation from 
the neighbor the original pattern had passed 
through the mould of the Jewish mind, it had been 
seen from a specific visual angle, and it had been 
reproduced slightly differing from its prototype; 
it bears now the stamp of Jewish individualism. 
But a close scrutiny will reveal the identity in 
every essential feature with that primitive original. 
If I should attempt to sum up in a short sentence 
the whole history of Jewish life in this century, 
I would say that it has been the awakening and 
strengthening of self-consciousness and the desire 

220 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

of securing absolute equalit^^ with non-Jews. 
This tendenc}^ has asserted itself in all the walks 
of life, in politics as well as in science and religion. 
In their eagerness the Jews may have sometimes 
overshot the mark and produced the semblance 
of aggressiveness. The Jews have practically re- 
discovered themselves, their past, and their posi- 
tion among the nations of the earth. They have 
come out of the artificial seclusion in which they 
had been kept for the last three or four centuries, 
and they at once acted upon the motto "Nihil 
hiimanum a me alienum puto." This participa- 
tion in the general movement was only gradual, 
and did not occur in all the countries where the 
Jews lived at the same time and to the same 
extent. It followed in the wake of the political 
emancipation of the nations themselves, and of 
the new tendencies that each nation evolved. 

Movement, agitation, must not be taken, how- 
ever, as indicating always a development making 
only for progress : it is as often retrograde as pro- 
gressive; it sometimes leads from one extreme to 
another. Like the waters of the sea, the waves 
mount until they reach the highest crest, only to 
flow downward, and the movement is, after all, 
stationary, depression following upheaval. Thus 
it happens with the development of Judaism in this 
century. In order to delineate the general drift of 
this movement I will treat it from the point of view 
of political disabilities, scientific revival, religious 
changes, and, lastly, national tendencies. These 

221 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

are neither all synchronous nor simultaneous. 
The progress in one direction often means retro- 
gression in the other; without being mutually 
exclusive, they are not all on the same plane, but 
relieve one another in turns. 

Paradoxical as it may sound, it is none the less 
true that, at the end of the last century, the Jews 
enjoyed the full protection of the law only in France 
and in Turkey. In fact, they have never suffered 
any persecution in the latter country, and the 
record of the Turks has never been stained by 
any such acts of persecution as all the nations of 
Europe have gloried in in the past. In France, the 
change in the political position of the Jews was 
a corollary to the principles of equality and fra- 
ternity proclaimed by the great Revolution. It 
was not an act of cool calculation and firm de- 
termination to wipe out the injustice committed 
against the Jews for so long a period; but the 
rush of enthusiasm evoked by the grand oratory 
of Mirabeau, and seconded by the Abbe Gregoire, 
carried the assembly by storm, and the French 
nation then granted the Jews the first gift of free- 
dom. It was the dawn of the new light that was 
to shine upon the whole of Europe, the first blast of 
that spirit that threw down the walls of feudalism, 
and opened the gates to the new life which hence- 
forth was to rule. This emancipation has thus the 
character of a gift, made in consequence of ab- 
stract theories. It is not a concession wrung from a 
reluctant foe by the superior force of conviction, 

222 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

not the result of a long struggle between darkness 
and light, not the outcome of a long process of 
maturing in the mind and heart of men, but came 
only and solely as a gift, irrespective of the merits 
of the recipients, heedless, and dependent upon 
the transitory mood of the giver. But, whatever its 
origin maj^ have been, the Jews were no less grate- 
ful for the first definite break with a terrible past. 
The number of French Jews at the time of the Rev- 
olution was not very great. Most of them lived in 
Alsace, and in only a few of the larger tow^ns of 
France were they at all numerous. The fickle 
character of this new abolition of disabilities, too 
long endured, was shown by the vicissitudes it had 
to go through, the animosities which it raised when 
the republic became a monarchy under Napoleon, 
and the attempts which were made to wreck the 
whole work of liberation, or at least to jeopardize 
its fair working. Thereupon, Napoleon called 
together the first public Jewish assembly, known 
as the Sanhedrim, to v/hich some of the objections 
and accusations which had been raised were sub- 
mitted for examination and reply. I mention only 
one of these objections, as it reappears in our days, 
viz. : the question as to how the Jews could reconcile 
their patriotism with the desire of returning to 
Palestine. The answers these notables were able 
to give satisfied Napoleon, though none of their 
direct recommendations was carried out. 

The importance of this new departure lay in the 
fact that it threw open to the Jews, for the first time, 

22Z 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the gates which had been closed to them all over 
Europe. They were introduced to the new par- 
liamentary forms of modern life, to the open dis- 
cussion and ventilation of grievances and of vital 
questions concerning them. In these delibera- 
tions of political assemblies they had a voice, and 
had no longer to wait and hear the result of 
the deliberations of others upon their affairs, 
deciding upon their hopes and fears, upon the 
measure of protection that was to be granted 
to or withheld from them. For at the beginning 
of the century the position of the Jews in all 
the other countries of Europe, always excepting 
Turkey, was full of degrading anomalies. The 
Ghetto, originally an Itahan invention, had been 
naturalized in the German - speaking countries. 
The German nation itself was cooped up in air- 
tight and, if I may coin the word, light-tight 
compartments. Split up into thirty or forty 
small governments, with laws and regulations dif- 
fering one from the other, these German '' states " 
devoted their pettifogging and pedantic ingenu- 
ity to inventing new regulations and prohibitions 
against the Jews, who were living in still smaller 
Ghettos than the rest of the inhabitants of 
these principalities. It would be absurd to at- 
tempt the enumeration of these regulations. 
Suf&ce it to say that even marriage was not al- 
lowed; only a certain number were permitted 
to live in each small community. There was 
no question of freedom of movement, none of the 

224 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

civil rights which ever}^^ stranger now enjo3"S in 
foreign countries. They had mostlj^ to hve in a 
circumscribed area, to earn their hvehhood by 
certain fixed means, to follow a certain limited 
number of trades and vocations. There was no 
freedom to travel from one place to another or to 
reside outside the radius, the ''Pale/^ prescribed 
by the authorities. Fines and taxes were im- 
posed with a lavish hand. The censor kept watch 
over all literary attempts. Every feeling of com- 
mon interest with the Gentile world outside was 
crushed out, and it would have been a wild dream 
indeed for some of the dwellers in those German 
Ghettos to believe in a change so sudden and so 
radical as was about to happen. 

The triumphal march of Napoleon's victorious 
armies swept away all these artificial barriers, and 
let fresh air and light in where up to then only the 
ghosts of mediaeval times used to stalk about freely. 
The dawn of a new era broke upon the Jews as well 
as upon all other nations. The call to arms for 
freedom from oppression, for liberation from feudal 
and secular thraldom, was heard by all the nations 
of Europe, and most of them responded to that call. 
New ideas were propagated, such as the fraterniza- 
tion of mankind, equality before the law, liberty 
of thought and action, words and ideas up to then 
living in the domain of philosophic dreamers. 
Unhampered by any traditional prejudices or vested 
interests, realizing to the full the significance of 
these doctrines, the Jews at once rallied to them. 
P 225 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

It was the first step towards complete emancipa- 
tion, to obtaining an equal footing with the rest 
of the inhabitants and to the realization of their 
hopes and aspirations. It is no wonder that the 
Jews eagerly seized this opportunity and would 
no longer allow the awakened self-consciousness 
to go to sleep again. The rest of the time was 
devoted mostly to strengthen this feeling. A 
continual war had been waged against it from the 
moment that Napoleon was defeated. The crudest 
reaction set in. All the old boundaries were re- 
erected, the old disabilities reimposed upon the 
Jews. They saw the walls of the Ghetto being 
rebuilt, after having tasted the sweets of free life 
and intercourse with their fellow-citizens of another 
faith. The nations were also again split up into 
small states, and all the privileges granted under 
stress of war were being revoked. Neither did 
the new democracy tamely submit, nor did the 
Jews view with equanimity the loss of their re- 
cently acquired freedom. This explains the part 
they thenceforth took in the struggle of the democ- 
racy and their adherence to liberalism, from 
which alone they could expect the redress of the 
grievances which they now felt more keenly than 
at any previous time. It also explains the sym- 
pathy felt by prominent thinkers among the Jews 
with the claims of labor, and their intuitive fore- 
sight in the treatment of the economical questions 
which are now dominating the civilized world. 
I shall have to revert to this part of the modern 

226 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

fabric of socict}^ as we are standing undoubtedly 
under the sign of coming contests between capital 
and labor, new problems are arising, and eco- 
nomic wars are threatening between nation and 
nation, between state and state. 

The horizon had been greatly enlarged during 
the first 3^ears of the last century, and, with that 
mental agility which is the outcome of the intel- 
lectual training pursued by the Jews for centuries, 
they at once applied themselves to master the new 
fields of science opened to them. Questions which 
had previously not crossed the threshold of the 
Ghetto were now brought home to the Jews. An 
agitation was kept up to strengthen the position 
once won. Need there was for such an agitation, 
for at a given time there were in Germany alone no 
less than thirtji^six^^eparate legislations dealing 
with the position of the Jews. Bit by bit they had 
to be demolished again, and only as late as 1870 
the last trace of the legal disabilities of the Jews 
disappeared in Prussia, also to be repealed soon 
afterwards, at least officially, in the other smaller 
German states. In France alone, though at 
times limited and threatened, the liberties once 
acquired were retained by the Jews. There also 
reaction tried to raise its head with the restoration 
of the monarchy ; but the traditions of the Revolu- 
tion were too strong, and the Jews had already 
occupied so strong a position that it was no easy 
matter to oust them from it. France has remained, 
up to a very short time ago, the ideal country of 

227 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

freedom and liberty for the Jews all over the Con- 
tinent. There the Jews also first identified them- 
selves entirely with the highest aspirations of the 
French nation; and were rewarded by an unstint- 
ed recognition of civil and political equality. All 
posts were open to them, all careers were now 
the legitimate aim of the younger generation, and 
they availed themselves fully of these rights, which 
they did not consider as privileges granted to them 
or some exceptional treatment vouchsafed in the 
form of a gift of toleration. 

A word now as to the Jews in England. In 
England all those hopes and aspirations of Euro- 
pean democracy, freedom from mediaeval trammels, 
equality before the law, and, above all, the sense of 
true justice which pervaded all classes of society, 
had been for centuries, I might say, the common 
property of the nation. An ingrained feeling of 
justice, and a respect and veneration for the Sacred 
Scriptures unequalled in another country of the 
world, contributed to win in time for the Jews 
the full protection of these admirable laws. In- 
cidentally, I may remark that England, knowing 
then as little as it does now the true state of the 
nations on the Continent, true to her principles, 
fought, as she imagined, the battle of liberty, 
and lent her hand to crush Napoleon under the 
impression that she was crushing tyranny. In 
fact, she assisted in rehabilitating the worst form 
of political reaction. Instead of one, she helped 
to set up numberless petty and worse tyrannies, 

228 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

I am not referring here to those wars against 
Napoleon waged in self-defence, and proclaimed 
as such. I am rather alluding to the general 
opinion, to the repetition of the assurance, that in 
fighting Napoleon tyranny was crushed. The 
Jews knew better, and the subsequent upheavals 
in every part of Europe showed that the masses 
of the down-trodden people knew better. The 
disabilities of the Jews in England disappeared 
also after a long struggle. Success was achieved 
by enlightening public opinion and by getting 
the sympathies of the masses, w^hich have never 
since been estranged. 

While this evolution was taking place at the 
centres of civilization, the position of the Jews 
in less-favored countries was on the vfhole better, 
in so far as they Vv^ere deluded by no mirage. The 
nations in whose midst they lived neither knew 
nor as yet appreciated the sweets of freedom. 
In Russia, especially, serfdom had not yet dis- 
appeared, and in comparison to the ''Souls'' of 
Gogol's pow^erful novel, the bodies of the Jews were 
in a better position. Nicholas II. attempted some 
reforms, but he carried them out in a drastic man- 
ner ; he forced the Jews into the ranks of the army, 
and at a given moment, finding them reluctant 
to become life-long soldiers, ordered a number of 
young children to be forcibly taken from their 
parents and to be brought up with peasants in 
distant parts of the country, to be drafted after- 
wards into the armj^ It is the very counter- 

229 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

part to the old practice of the Turks to take 
young Christian boys and bring them up as 
Mohammedans, to form the body of janizaries. 
I mention this fact, not merely to show that the 
Jews in Russia were then, as now, at the absolute 
mercy of the autocratic government, in some 
respects very little better treated than the serfs, 
but also to point to the first cause of the modern 
Jewish emigration from the east of Europe to the 
west and to America. The " Dran^ nach dem 
Westen" so conspicuous at the end of ancient 
history, preceding the mediaeval period, was re- 
peated now on a smaller scale by the migration 
which set in, which has been going on uninter- 
ruptedly and is assuming immense proportions. 

The Jewries of the West became thus enlarged by 
the new-comers, and also modified to a certain extent 
by this element. The number and importance of 
Jewish communities increased everywhere through 
this influx of new blood. There is no greater mistake 
than to imagine that this new element was merely 
the receiving one; that it obtained in the West 
more personal protection, greater liberties, and 
greater facilities for intellectual and social develop- 
ment; they were to a great extent also givers. 
The share which they have taken in the spiritual 
development of the Jews in the nineteenth century 
is bj^ no means inconsiderable, as will become 
evident later on w^hen I deal with this aspect of our 
problem. Characteristic for this first period is the 
enormous spreading out of the Jews all over Europe^ 

230 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

by far greater than has happened during the 
last four preceding centuries, and on a much 
larger scale than even at the time of the expulsion 
of the Jews from Spain, Then, and at the time of 
the Cossack persecutions in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the Jews were fleeing for their lives. The 
alternative was either death or conversion to Chris- 
tianity. In the last century, it was voluntary im- 
migration ; for if they remained in their old homes, 
the alternative was persecution and the life of a 
helot, or spiritual destitution and the death of the 
soul, though not immediately that of the body. 
They chose the life of freedom, of hard work 
and brighter prospects. An alluring picture drew 
them by thousands from the Ghettos of the East 
to the free countries of the West. The air was 
filled with poetry : one heard of the teaching 
of ''human brotherhood,'' of ''equality between 
man and man,'' of cosmopolitan tendencies. The 
glamour of poetical romanticism was shed round 
the past. The principles of altruism, Comte's 
Positivism, the streams of new life, were all so 
different from the dirges and wails of tortured souls, 
from the echoes that resounded in other parts of 
the world. Equality, liberty, cosmopolitan level- 
lings, were so much unlike the "divine rights" 
claimed by a few chosen individuals, the aristo- 
cratic and feudal privileges from which the rest of 
the people was rigidly excluded, which, for instance, 
ruined Poland, and divided central Europe into 
numberless petty states. All those grand ideas, 

231 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

nurtured in the hearts of the Jews under the 
designation of ''Messianic hopes/' were now 
apparently reaHzed. No wonder, therefore, that 
the Jews should feel attracted, and should change 
their wretched birthplaces for better countries. 
Out of the political gloom and the night of per- 
secution into the light of freedom and hope ! 

The improvement in the situation of the Jews in 
the west of Europe went on up to about 1875. 
The German Empire had scarcely been established 
when the old war between kaiser and pope broke 
out anew. Under the name of " Kulturkampf/' 
Bismarck and his Minister Falke inaugurated an 
era of persecution of the German Catholics. I can- 
not enter here upon the merits of that struggle. 
But the fight against one religious denomination, 
though carried on for political purposes, was dex- 
terously shifted from the Catholics and by the 
Catholics on to the German Jews. Some of the 
latter, such as Lasker, in their quality as dep- 
uties, supported Bismarck in the Reichsrath; 
hence the hatred against them. Much love 
had never been lost on the Jews in Germany. 
It required very little skill to revive the old feud, 
which had never been entirely obliterated. The 
old spirit was still powerful; more than a solitary 
spark of prejudice had remained alive, and it was 
soon blown into a mighty flame. The principles 
enunciated for the first time, and formulated by 
men who pretend to stand on the summit of " Cult- 
ure,'' have spread far beyond the borders of the 

232 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

"Fatherland/' and have become now the catch- 
words of thoughtless demagogues and of irre- 
sponsible leaders of the new crusade against the 
Jews. Germany plays so important a role in the 
modern history of mankind, and has so deeply 
influenced the current of modern thought and 
habits, that I must devote more space to the con- 
sideration of the changes wrought there than to 
those in any other country. It forms, as it w^ere, 
the centre whence all the effects found elsewhere can 
be shown to have radiated. As the treatment to 
which the Jews are exposed is a sort of ps3^cho- 
logical barometer for the ethical position which a 
nation can claim in the world of morals and of 
truth, an examination of the principles which 
have ruled, and now rule again, might also be of 
some interest to the student of modern ethics. 

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Ger- 
many, split up into numberless small states, with 
a narrow political horizon, and yet not having a 
literature of its own, was deeply influenced by 
French and English literature. Romanticism, the 
poetical glorification of the Middle Ages, due to a 
great extent to absolute ignorance of the true 
aspects of things during that period, also began 
to be popular in Germany. But while, in Eng- 
land, Bishop Percy's Collection produced, in the 
long run, Scott's Ivanhoe, in Germany Herder's 
Stimmen der Volker did not produce Lessing's 
Nathan der Weise, w^hich preceded it, but stimulated 
the glorification of the Teutonic Middle Ages, the 

233 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

romanticism of Schlegel and Brentano, and ul- 
timately a heathen Teutomania, which excluded 
everything from its Walhalla that could not prove 
Germanic ethnic descent. The first logical conse- 
quence was the appearance of pamphlets from men 
like Riihss and Riel, in which they declared the 
Jews to be incapable of joining in the Teutonic 
nation as equal units, and proposed to grant them 
mere toleration as a people of another race and of 
another religious mould. In order, as it were, to 
atone for this new heathendom, which pervaded 
the universities, there set in a peculiar religious 
coloring of Christianity — a sentimental, vague 
Christianity — not free from mediaeval mysticism 
and licentiousness. The spokesman of this spe- 
cies was Schleiermacher, whose teaching, improved 
upon by his followers, ended in the declaration of a 
belief in a special Teutonic Christianity, with a 
God of its own. It was anything but true Chris- 
tianity. Furthermore, natural science, which reach- 
ed its highest development in the last century, 
on the one hand sapped the foundation of religion 
just as much as the rationalistic school of Tubin- 
gen, with the new Higher Criticism of the Bible, 
did so on the other. All these causes contributed 
to a lowering of the standard of equality granted to 
the Jews, and robbed them of the fruits of the sac- 
rifices which they had willingly — nay, cheerfully — 
brought to the altar of their German "Father- 
land " when they fought in the ranks of the Ger- 
man armies against their own liberator. Napoleon. 

234 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

Nor was this the only sacrifice which they brought. 
In their endeavor to show in a practical manner 
the hollowness of those pedants and dreaming 
reactionaries who would fain revive the glorious 
times of the Middle Ages, they almost outdid the 
Germans in their patriotism, and, carried too far in 
their zeal, overstepped the boundaries which kept 
them in safet}^ It was all in vain. The princi- 
ples of the Teutomans have survived to a sur- 
prising degree. Hatred of the foreigner in blood, 
glorification and exaltation of whatever appeared 
to be German, or rather Teutonic, especially as it 
led indirectly to the establishment of the German 
Empire, is growing steadily alongside of a grow- 
ing unrest and disintegration. Mystical, specific 
Christianity, rank apostasy, and crude materialism 
act as such disintegrating forces, with socialistic 
tendencies opposed to feudal pretensions; all 
these and the lust of persecution, shown also by 
the conflict with Rome, contribute in their way to 
this process of disintegration, and have made it very 
easy for the skilful manipulator to turn popular 
prejudices against the Jews, pointing to them as the 
primary cause of the social and religious discontent 
permeating various classes of society. They were 
charged with the responsibility for all the skep- 
ticism that turned people away from the Church, 
and for the political radicalism which threatened 
the prerogatives of privileged persons and classes. 
All this, however, would not have sufficed to 
drive the Jews from their legally safeguarded 

235 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

position, and would not have found favor with 
the massevS, had the masses not been weaned, 
effectively and energetically, from those lofty 
sentiments of cosmopolitanism, altruism, equal- 
ity, the brotherhood of man, and all the glorious 
principles for which they died on the barricades dur- 
ing the first half of the last century. Local patri- 
otism had been fostered, and, above all, the nation 
had been put into the strait - jacket of militarism, 
where it was taught to obey and not to reason, 
and where it was to find political salvation. The 
era of blood and iron set in, and the higher 
principles of humanity, of justice, of equality to 
all the members of the state, had been drowned 
in the blood of many battle-fields. Nationalism — 
i. e., egotism in its most brutal form — took the 
place of humanitarianism; seclusion, that of ex- 
pansion; personal interests, that of general wel- 
fare; and all together have produced and still 
produce a spirit of bitter jealousy and envy, of 
hatred and persecution against anything and 
everything that runs counter to the new racial 
and national prejudices, which are set up as 
the only standard of true patriotism. Hence 
the universal moral decay, the ethical disintegra- 
tion which slowly darkened the horizon of the 
civilized world in the last twenty-five years of the 
past century. This is the psychological origin of 
the new moral disease known under the name of 
Anti-Semitism. Born and bred in Germany, it 
was nurtured there and has spread like a plague 

236 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

from country to country, following in the wake 
of militarism, despotism, the brutalization of the 
masses, false patriotism, greed, and jealousy. 

It is not to be supposed that the Jews, whose 
life is being made more miserable from day to day, 
had no share in this change of sentiment and 
treatment. The fault which can be laid at their 
doors is that they had neglected to study the lessons 
of the past. They were too eager to cast off that 
past, to obliterate every trace of it, and to show 
by sacrifices not asked for, nor even expected 
from them, how much they wished to identify 
themselves with the country in which they hap- 
pened to live, from the mom.ent they were given 
a status of equality. To them the dawn of liberty 
was sure to be followed by the full light of the 
day, a day that would never end, a sun that 
would never set! And so they threw their whole 
heart and soul into the melting-pot of Germaniza- 
tion, Anglicization, Gallicization, etc., expecting to 
come out of it without an^^ dross of the past cling- 
ing to them, shining in the new light of patriot- 
ism as bright as the other inhabitants of those 
countries. They believed strongly in the sin- 
cerity of the generous sentiments expressed by 
others, and thought that such generosity claimed 
like generosity or renunciation on their part. 
Herein lies the fundamental error of the Jews, 
which exacted from them so bitter a penalty at 
the close of the last century. Starting from false 
premises, they were led to false conclusions. There 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

was no generosity on the part of those who granted 
the Jews equahty and hberty. It was merely an 
act of justice ; it was the homage rendered to the 
awakened spirit of truth and right, and claimed, 
as such, no more recognition or thanks than any 
act of justice performed in the courts of any coun- 
try. The Jew bears the burdens of the state in 
the same manner as the other inhabitants, and has 
therefore just as much claim to participate in all 
rights and liberties as the rest of his fellow-citizens. 
To go out of the way in order to demonstrate the 
fulfilment of one's duty as a citizen is a sign that 
we believe a doubt to be lingering in the mind of 
the other which we feel bound to destroy. 

To imagine again that any sacrifice that a nation 
with such a past as the Jews could make would at 
once alter their innate characteristics, or would 
in any way promote an intimate fusion of two 
races, was the greatest mistake possible. Short of 
apostasy, the Jews did not shrink from any sacri- 
fice. In consequence of the awakened conscious- 
ness, their desire was to obliterate every vestige 
of that past, and to be merged completely into the 
nation with which they aspired to live on a foot- 
ing of absolute equality. It was an impossible 
and unnatural attempt. Instead of being satis- 
fied with marching on parallel lines, they wished 
to walk in converging lines, hoping that, at some 
time whose advent they wished to hasten as 
much as possible, the point of contact would be 
reached. We witness, therefore, throughout the 

238 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

greater part of the last century a craving for blind 
imitation, in the vain hope of obtaining absolute 
identification and assimilation. 

I am not inveighing against the legitimate 
desire of full participation in the conquests over 
the forces of nature, or against their eager wish 
to take, if possible, a large share in the intellectual 
victories which science in the widest sense has 
gained. True science is not limited to one nation 
or to one hemisphere. It stands far above the 
petty divisions invented by clannishness and kept 
up by sordid motives. Endowed with that keen- 
ness of intellect which was the heirloom of so 
man}" centuries of mental training, the Jews soon 
identified themselves with all the progress which 
has marked the intellectual life of the world during 
the last hundred years. There is no branch of 
knowledge in which the Jews are not full}^ rep- 
resented : in medicine as well as in the natural 
sciences; in diplomacy as well as in law; in music 
and painting, the drama and fiction. In every 
country and in every land where facilities were 
given to them to acquire the requisite knowledge 
the Jews were not behind in utilizing them to the 
fullest extent. To give here a list of such men as 
have contributed to the general advancement of 
civilization would be too tedious a task. Every 
science knows them, every branch of learning 
counts scores among them, and especially among 
the followers of exact sciences are they well known. 
This, however, is of little consequence for the inner 

239 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

history of Israel during the nineteenth century. 
It was more the outcome of the endeavor to con- 
tinue on new hnes the same activity that had been 
displayed by them throughout the centuries. 

Of far greater moment, however, is the inner 
religious change which has taken place in conse- 
quence of this craving for assimilation. It pla\^ed 
them false, inasmuch as it made the Jews believe 
that their identification with the higher intellect- 
ual pursuits, and the equality they had gained 
therein, would also bring with it the social equality 
of which they had dreamed. They fashioned their 
lives according to non- Jewish models. Easily in- 
fluenced as they have shown themselves in all 
times, they played at being Teutons of a new 
complexion. The barriers of the Ghetto once 
broken, all that which seemed to remind them of it 
was henceforth to be forgotten, obliterated from the 
mind and heart of the new generation. We see, 
therefore, a profound change in the religious life of 
the Jews. Mendelssohn's activity, the introduction 
of the pure German instead of the corrupt German 
which the Jews spoke, the acquaintance with Ger- 
man literature and the philosophical tendencies of 
the time, caused the Jews to attempt the recasting 
of the old faith and ceremonial on what they be- 
lieved to be a rational basis. To curtail the service, 
to introduce German sermons, to ape the outward 
form of Christian worship, to eliminate Hebrew 
from the synagogue and from the house, were 
the first and principal aims of the new school 

240 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

headed by Jacobsohn and followed by many. 
The ultimate ambition of these reformers was to 
bring about at least outward identity in worship 
between Jews and non-Jews, and to sweep away 
the last remnant of the specifically Jewish life 
in the Ghetto. 

Growing skepticism, the heathen tendencies 
and the romantic Schivdrmerei of their Teutonic 
models, were not without effect upon their blind 
followers. And when the '' Teutonic-Christian '' 
state held out the bribery of appointments and 
honor for apostasy, it became rampant. A blow 
had been struck at the old faith by the example set 
in the famous '' Salons " of Berlin, by the apostasy 
of the daughters of Mendelssohn, of Rachel Levine, 
and others. No wonder if men like Heine and 
Boerne were driven to similar expedients. Near- 
ly every man who aspired, and I may say aspires 
now, to the chair of a professor at a German uni- 
versity had first to sacrifice his convictions. The 
want of religious fervor and the lack of adhesion 
to the old teaching spread very much among the 
Jews and was one of the principal characteristics 
of the nineteenth century. More even than the 
Christians did the Jews of the west of Europe, 
and, for that matter, those of America, reject the 
old teaching, consciously or unconsciously ani- 
mated by the same sentiment of placing them- 
selves on an equal footing with their neighbors. 
In order to share in an imaginary social equality, 
they gave up every distinctive mark and appeared 
Q 241 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

to the non-Jews as stripped of every Jewish ideal, 
given up entirely to the mimicking of others, 
without losing, however, in spite of what they 
had so fondly imagined, those traits which had 
been impressed on their minds and habits by the 
seclusion of the Ghetto. We thus find Judaism 
undergoing a radical process of transformation 
among the Western Jews, which has to a certain 
extent estranged them from their Eastern brothers, 
without bringing them perceptibly nearer the 
goal at which the}^ aimed. 

This movement did not pass unchallenged. 
These changes, not being born of profound scholar- 
ship, but attempting merely to replace the things 
that appeared antiquated and irksome by others 
borrowed from foreign sources that appeared 
new and attractive, not resting on a sympathetic 
or romantic appreciation of the past, were chal- 
lenged by men of a totally different stamp, who 
have successfully driven this current back. 

The example set by German romanticism, turn- 
ing back with admiration to the twilight of the 
Middle Ages, was not lost upon the Jews. Those 
who had immigrated from eastern Europe or come 
from the then half -civilized communities of Austria 
and Galicia, learned soon to imitate and to search 
for similar examples in the old, now almost for- 
gotten, literature of ancient times. For the Jews 
had no period of obscurantism, no real Middle 
Ages; the}^ had a long record of mental activity, 
which, however, lay buried under the ruins of the 

242 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

old world. To this the new generation turned 
with love, in the hope of showing to their people 
that the Jewish past was no whit behind other 
nations in pathos and romanticism, in learning 
and intellectual achievements. Thus arose the 
school of the History of Judaism, whose foremost 
representatives were Zunz, Frankel, and notably 
Graetz, the famous historian. 

Other branches of purely Hebrew learning began 
to be cultivated, and the scientific methods of the 
Christian schools slowly found their way into 
the midst of the Jews. The beginning of the 
nineteenth century saw the first Jewish Review, 
in which Heine's friends and contemporaries col- 
laborated, in which Zunz published his first essay 
on Rabbinic literature, and the close of it saw the 
gigantic undertaking of Funk & Wagnall — an En- 
cyclopaedia of the Jews, in ten huge volumes. It 
is to be the embodiment of the scientific results ob- 
tained solely in the course of that century. 

The larger mass of the Jews, those who remained 
behind in the east of Europe, have participated only 
to a lesser degree in the modifications which have 
shaped the life of their better-situated brethren 
in the West. In political liberties, in aspirations, 
in the new feeling of consciousness, in social equal- 
ity, and in work in the field of science, they have 
kept pace with their immediate neighbors, always 
trying for the best and often succeeding. The 
religious conflicts also found an echo in those lands, 
but it took some time before they penetrated behind 

243 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the Chinese wall which resists the entrance of 
Western ideas into the mighty Empire of the East. 
But there are no permanent barriers against the 
spirit. It scaled these walls also, though a con- 
siderable interval elapsed ere it reached the masses 
living beyond. The conflict is still going on, but 
a movement since begun is driving the Jewish 
life into new channels. 

On the other hand, the receding wave of a once 
mighty Messianic enthusiasm left on the strand 
the germs of a new mystical teaching, which re- 
sembles in one way the vagaries and miracles 
told by the monks of the Nitrian Desert, and the 
tales of Avva Pahomius and St. Anthony, in the 
third and fourth centuries in Egypt, and in another 
the principles that underlie the conception of the 
Dalai-Lama of Tibet, the ever-recurring incarna- 
tion of Buddha as the visible intermediary be- 
tween God and man. The Hassidim, with their 
wonder-working ''Rebbe,'' the living incarnation 
of a superhuman intermediary between them and 
God, the substitution of a Quaker-like, enthusiastic 
form of worship at times when the spirit moves 
them, and freedom from other ceremonial injunc- 
tions connected with worship and prayer, is to a 
certain extent the form which reform has taken in 
the East. Unconsciously rebelling against some 
rabbinical tenets, it has contributed in its way to 
undermine the older form and to disintegrate 
Judaism in a peculiar manner. 

To the impartial observer of these internal 
244 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

changes within the spiritual Hfe of Jewry, they 
appear hke the dead leaves which are scattered by 
the first shaking of the old tree by the storm of per- 
secution that rages ; they fall from the stem of Juda- 
ism, and are the humus out of which a new life will 
grow. And a new life is growing. The manifold 
causes which have contributed to the awakening 
of Jewish self-consciousness and to strengthen it for 
at least half a century have not disappeared without 
leaving great results. If nothing is lost in nature, 
dumb and speechless as it is, still less is anything 
lost that has been stirred in the human soul once 
awakened. It may change, it may pass through 
a metamorphosis, but it will be like the caterpillar 
which becomes a butterfly. Just as little as the 
Middle Ages could be restored or the Ghetto revived 
upon the old lines, so little could one expect to find 
the Jews any longer with that broken spirit that 
submitted to ignominies. Self-consciousness, once 
awakened, will not allow itself to be lulled again 
into a lethargic sleep. The unity of Israel has also 
been practically demonstrated by the Jews during 
the past century. They have contributed to the 
emancipation of the body, as well as of the spirit, of 
their less fortunate brethren. The cause of the 
Jews in one country has been felt as that of the 
Jews in all other countries. This feeling was 
more pronounced in those countries where the 
Jews believed themselves to have obtained absolute 
equality in every respect with the other inhabitants. 
Such was the case in France, England, and, re- 

245 



GREAT RELIGIONS OP THE WORLD 

cently, in America. The principles advocated are 
those of human hberty, of equal duties and equal 
rights. In the name of these great principles, men 
like Sir Moses Montefiore and Isaac Adolphe Cre- 
mieux could not allow the horrible blood-accusa- 
tion against the Jews, formulated for the first time 
again in 1840 in Damascus, to pass unchallenged. 
They stood up for their falsely accused brethren 
and defended their cause, not merely in England 
and France, but personally in Constantinople 
and Alexandria, and there refuted these baseless 
calumnies. It was reserved to the closing years 
of the nineteenth century to revive those horrible 
accusations, as if to give the lie to the intervening 
fifty years of comparative progress and civilization. 

The result of that mission to the East has been 
much more far-reaching, for it led to the establish- 
ment of an association whose principal object is to 
protect the Jews in those countries where they are 
still kept in a kind of social bondage, and to pro- 
mote their emancipation by legal means. Thus 
was the Alliance Israelite founded in Paris. In 
1870, during the Franco-German war, when the 
Alliance in Paris was crippled, a branch was 
established in England, identical with the French 
in all its aims. Spiritual emancipation was part 
of the programme, hence the foundation of schools 
in the East. 

With the modification of the status of the Jews 
in Europe, and with the changed conditions under 
which the people grew up. the former part of the 

246 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

Alliance's activity may be said to have come to 
an end with the Russo-Turkish War. The spirit of 
chivalry and of generous impulses has from that 
time forward been completely driven out of Europe. 
Each country, every government, inaugurated for 
itself an era of self-interest of the basest com- 
mercial t3^pe. With a few noteworthy exceptions 
made by the Enghsh government, the nations 
turned a poUte but none the less deaf ear to the 
complaints made of the barbarous treatment of the 
Jews in Roumania and Russia. The Alliances 
becoming thus mere institutions for the establish- 
ment of schools — in itself a very laudable but not a 
very courageous or lofty undertaking — the Jews 
were forced to seek remedies within their own 
powers and guided by their own experiences. 
The end of the century now saw an attempt on a 
larger scale to give expression to this feeling of self- 
emancipation. The miser}^ which refined legal 
persecution is bringing upon millions is growing 
hourly in the east of Europe, and the disappoint- 
ment among the Jews of the West to find them- 
selves, after years of toil and self-sacrifice, ruth- 
lessly thrust back within the walls of a moral 
Ghetto, the uncertainty of the future combined with 
the self-consciousness and the feeling of national 
life which is slowly dawning upon the Jewish 
masses — although different from that in which 
they sought to be merged — all these contributed 
to endow the idea of resettlement in the old land 
of their fathers with a new and immediate signifi- 

247 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

cance. The idea of establishing Jewish colonies 
in Palestine has gone through some stages al- 
ready. It began on a serious basis in 1880, and 
Baron Edmond de Rothschild, of Paris, has con- 
tributed almost exclusively to the success which 
has attended these undertakings. Baron de Hirsch 
imitated the example, but sent his Jewish colonies 
to the Argentine. The Jewish Colonization Asso- 
ciation, the heir to his fortune, partly reversed his 
policy and identified itself largely with the coloniza- 
tion of Palestine by Jews. The masses worked on 
parallel lines with these men, and out of their 
midst sprang the new movement known under 
the name of Zionism — that is, the return to Zion as 
a political unity. 

We are standing at the beginning of this move- 
ment, which alone will assist in solving one of the 
most perplexing problems in modern sociology, 
will free Europe of an element which, in spite of 
all phrases to the contrary, is still considered as 
alien, and will be treated as such according to 
circumstances. There are some, among the richer 
Jews, who have vested interests and narrow con- 
ceptions; they are held fast in the meshes of self- 
delusion and cannot differentiate between the 
rights and duties of a citizen and the historical 
obligations of a national and religious life; they 
are still holding aloof from this movement. The 
vast masses, however, the sufferers and toilers 
of the earth, have rallied enthusiastically round 
it. In one way or another, realized sooner or later, 

248 



JEWS AND JUDAISM 

with the assistance of all, or carried out in spite 
of many, this is the sign under which Judaism 
enters the new century. Centrifugal tendencies 
have had their day ; now is the time for centripetal 
concentration. This is the watchword of indus- 
trial interests, of political aspirations, and of na- 
tional hopes. The Jews follow herein also the 
general trend of human activity. 

It is idle to speculate at this juncture what the re- 
sult may be for the progress of the higher ideals of 
mankind. A mighty wind of reaction is blowing 
all over Europe. We are moving on the down- 
grade plane leading from equality, fraternity, free- 
dom, and right, to racial hatred, national exclusive- 
ness, military brutalization, and dynastic tyranny; 
from the free and serene atmosphere of human 
faith to the swamps of mysticism, occultism, to 
the inquisition and the stake. But far away the 
dawn of a new life is visible, a new day which 
will disperse the shadows that are settling down, 
a day rising again from the regenerated East, from 
the Orient inhabited again by its own sons — Jews 
living a national life, competing for the best and 
working for the highest, blending the civilization 
of the West with the poetry of the East, and giving 
to mankind the message of better days — '' Ex 
Oriente lux/' 

M. Gaster. 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRIS 
TIANITY 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRIS- 
TIANITY 



What are the prospects of the Christian rehg- 
ion? What promise has it of retaining its hold 
upon the human race and extending its influence 
over the thought and life of men? 

Voices which are supposed to be influential are 
frequently heard asserting the decadence of Chris- 
tianity and predicting its speedy disappearance. 
That assertion and that prediction have been 
many times repeated, from the days of Celsus down 
to Bolingbroke and Diderot and Voltaire. In the 
mean time, the geographers have continued to 
find a place for Christianity on their maps, and 
the statisticians do not appear to be able to treat 
it as a neglectable quantity. 

We are warned against putting our trust in 
figures. Numerical estimates of the growth of a 
religious system are not, indeed, conclusive. Its 
product must be weighed as well as counted. Yet 
the figures which show the expansion of Chris- 
tianity as a world power can hardly be disregarded. 
For the early periods we have only estimates; but 

253 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

it is at least an approximation to the truth to say- 
that, at the end of the first century, there were in 
the world about five millions of nominal Chris- 
tians ; at the end of the tenth century, ten millions ; 
at the end of the fifteenth, one hundred millions; at 
the end of the eighteenth, two hundred milHons; 
at the end of the nineteenth, five hundred millions. 
The last century has added to the adherents of 
Christianity almost three times as many as were 
added during the first fifteen centuries. The rate of 
progress now is far more rapid than at any other 
period during the Christian era. 

The population of the world is growing. The 
estimates are that, whereas in 1786 the dwellers 
on this planet numbered 954,000,000, in 1886 
they were 1,483,000,000, an increase of fifty-four 
per cent. But the nominal Christians had in- 
creased during the same period more than one 
hundred per cent. The political strength of Chris- 
tendom is not, however, represented by these 
figures. In 1786 a little more than one-third 
of the people of the world were under the govern- 
ment of Christian nations, and a little less than 
two-thirds were under the control of non-Chris- 
tian nations; in 1886 fifty-five per cent, of the 
larger population were under Christian rule, and 
only fort3^-five per cent, under non-Christian rule. 

The geographers put it in this way: In 1600 
the inhabited surface of the earth measured about 
43,798,600 square miles; of these. Christians oc- 
cupied about 3,480,900, and non-Christians 40,- 

254 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

317,700. In 1894 the number of square miles 
inhabited was reckoned at 53,401,400, of which 
Christians held 45,619,100 and non - Christians 
8,782,300. 

These facts do not encourage the expectation 
that Christianity is about to disappear from the 
face of the earth. If the external signs could be 
trusted, there would be good reason for believing 
that the day is not far distant when it will take 
full possession of the earth. 

We have been speaking of the political and 
geographical expansion of nominal Christianity 
— of the populations and the areas which are 
under the dominion of races and rulers who call 
themselves by the Christian name. It is to be 
remembered that, while nearly two-thirds of the 
world's population is now controlled by Christian 
powers, a large proportion of those under this 
control are not even nominal Christians. The 
governments of non-Christian races, as in India 
and Egypt and Siam, have been overthrow^n and 
supplanted by governments of the Christian pow- 
ers. But nearly 500,000,000, or more than a third 
of the w^orld's population, now bear the Christian 
name, and accept, in some more or less intelligible 
way, Christian theories and ideals. 

Among these hundreds of millions there are 
many and various standards of belief and conduct. 
None of the great religions has a uniform cult 
or a single type of morality; Christianity is as 
far from this uniformity as any of the others. In 

255 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

different races it has taken on different characters; 
if certain fundamental behefs are universal, many 
variants of thought and sentiment appear in the 
different tribes and tongues. Perhaps Christi- 
anity follows the evolutionary laws, and em- 
ploys variation as one of the elements of progress. 
It may be that its natural result is the production 
of a great variety of theories and practices, and 
that it depends on natural or spiritual selection to 
preserve the best. 

Besides a number of minor sects, such as the 
Abyssinians, the Copts, the Armenians, the Nes- 
torians, and the Jacobites, numbering in all four 
or five millions, we have the three grand di- 
visions of Christendom — the Holy Orthodox Greek 
Church, with 98,000,000 adherents; the Protestant 
churches, with an aggregate of 143,000,000, and 
the Roman Catholic Church, with 230,000,000. 
No statistics are at hand showing the relative 
growth of the number of adherents of these three 
great divisions. But the growth of the populations 
under their rule is thus set forth by comparison: 
The Roman Catholics, in the year 1500, were 
ruling over 80,000,000 people; in 1700, over 
90,000,000, and in 189 1, over 242,000,000. The 
Greek Catholics, in 1500, were governing 20,000,- 
000; in 1700, 33,000,000, and in 189 1, 128,000,000. 
The Protestants, in 1500, had not begun to be; 
in 1700, they held sway over 32,000,000, and in 
1 89 1, over 520,000,000. In the four centuries 
the political power of the Roman Catholics has 

256 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

more than trebled, that of the Greeks has been 
multipHed b}^ six, and that of the Protestants has 
sprung from nothing to a control of one-third 
of the world's population. It is easy to see which 
of these grand divisions is expanding most rapidly. 

More important and more difficult is the question 
concerning the intellectual and moral progress of 
these three great sections of Christendom. It would 
be natural to judge that they must all be alive; 
such growth as they all report is a sign of life. 

If we could trust Count Tolstoy, the Holy Ortho- 
dox Greek Church is not only moribund, but rotten. 
To this merciless idealist its shortcomings are 
crimes; no judgment more unsparing has been 
uttered since the days of John the Baptist than 
that w4th which he scourges the church in which 
he was reared. There must be some truth in this 
terrible arraignment; yet one cannot be quite 
confident that Tolstoy's criticisms are always 
judicial. Something there must be of saving 
power in this national church; the Russian people 
could not possess the moral vigor which their 
history constantly reveals if their religious life 
were as inane and degrading as Tolstoy paints it. 
As a writer of the last century said : 

" One must actually stand in the Kremlin and Troitza 
before he fully realizes what a mighty, although latent, power 
the Greek Church still is, and how great a part it may have 
to play in the drama of human history. Inert, abject, super- 
stitious, full of abuses, it undoubtedly is. It can hardly be 
said to have done anything for literature or for art ; nothing, 

R 257 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

at least, that has become famous beyond its own frontier ; 
and yet a form of religion which has supported its adherents 
under the successive deluges of misery which flowed over 
Russia during the Middle Ages, and in spite of the dull weight 
of wretchedness which has weighed on the Russian peasant 
almost up to the present hour, has made him so gentle, so 
enduring, so tolerant, must have some not inconsiderable 
merits. Its education of a thousand years must have some- 
thing to do with that inexhaustible gentleness which, in the 
words of Schedo-Ferroti, is the base of his character ; with that 
incomparable sweetness of temper which causes his soul to 
reflect everything in a way different to that which we observe 
in the lower classes of other nations." 

With some vSuch judgment the philosophic 
observer would be compelled, no doubt, to temper 
the heat of Tolstoy's denunciation. Yet it must be 
confessed that the condition of the Greek Church 
to-day is less hopeful than that of any of her sister 
churches. If our regard were fixed on Russia, we 
should find faint encouragement for the expecta- 
tion of the coming of Christ's spiritual kingdom. 
The union of church and state has resulted in the 
paralysis of spiritual life. The principle of Or- 
thodoxy, which means the fixation of religious 
thought, has had its perfect work in Russia ; with- 
drawal from the established church means dis- 
franchisement and ostracism; and the result is 
deadlj^ hj^pocrisy in high places and the blight of 
the intellect that deals with questions of religion. 
Nowhere else is religious reform so much needed 
as in Russia. Dissenters and schismatics there 
are, some twelve or fifteen millions of them; and 

258 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

there are quiet and kindly folk among them who 
appear to have returned to the simplicity of Christ. 
Against these, the persecutions of the state church 
are most bitterly waged. For the greater part, 
however, the schismatics and come-outers are a 
queer assortment, holding the most fantastic no- 
tions and practising some highly unsocial cus- 
toms. The points in which the schismatics are at 
variance with the Orthodox Church are not al- 
ways of great importance; some of their fiercest 
controversies have raged around such questions 
as whether the sign of the cross shall be made with 
two fingers or three, or whether the Hallelujah 
shall be said twice or thrice, or whether the cross 
shall have four arms or eight. That Christians, 
in the twentieth century, should regard such mat- 
ters as of sufficient importance to justify them in 
setting up separate sects is only less astonishing 
than the fact that a state claiming to be Christian 
has scourged and imprisoned and slain its subjects 
by thousands for no other offence than adherence 
to these small ritual peculiarities. 

The religious condition of Russia is little changed 
since the Middle Ages; the anomaly which it 
presents is that of a religious system remaining 
stationary, or nearly stationary, in the midst of 
a rapidly moving civilization. Even here, how- 
ever, it is probable that a better knowledge of all 
conditions, past and present, would show that 
some progress has been made during the century. 
The emancipation of the serfs appears to have 

259 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

been inspired by Christian sentiments; the con- 
dition of the dissenting sects has been considerably 
amehorated, and it would be cynical to deny that 
the recent overtures of the czar for disarmament 
and arbitration drew part of their inspiration from 
the teachings of the Prince of Peace. The Rus- 
sian Church has come far short of its high calling, 
but the light of the gospel has not been wholly ex- 
tinguished, and we may hope to see a more ration- 
al and vital faith supplanting the obscurantism 
which so long has veiled its brightness. 

The condition of the Roman Catholic Church is 
far more hopeful. It has had the good fortune, not 
altogether of its own choice, to be practically 
divorced, in many countries, for many years, from 
politics, and its freedom has resulted in a whole- 
some development of its life. Its intellectual and 
moral progress has been slowest in the countries 
in which it has had most to do with the govern- 
ment; its best gains have been made in those coun- 
tries where it has been free to devote its energies to 
the spiritual concerns of its adherents. The Ro- 
man Catholic Church in the great Protestant coun- 
tries — in Germany and England and the United 
States — has been making great progress ; its people 
are receiving education; the standards of intelli- 
gence and of character are steadily rising among 
its clergy; it is exerting a conservative and salutary 
force upon the national life. With respect to what 
has been done for the protection of the family 
against the influences that are threatening its life^ 

260 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

the Roman Catholic Church deserves all praise. 
During a recent lamentable recrudescence of Prot- 
estant bigotry on this continent, the moderation 
and wisdom of the Roman Catholic clergy and the 
Roman Catholic people won the grateful recogni- 
tion of all good men. If they had not behaved 
much more like Christians than the zealots who 
filled the air with baseless lies about them, the 
land would have been deluged with blood. Such 
Roman Catholics as Kenrick and Williams and 
Gibbons and Ireland and Elder and Keane in 
this country, and Manning and Newman and 
Vaughan in England, represent a high order of 
intelligence and patriotism ; and, under their wise 
leadership, the unhappy alienation between the 
two great branches of the Western Church is 
gradually disappearing. 

It cannot be doubted that the Roman Catholic 
Church, as a whole, is sharing liberally in the 
growing light of this new day. It may be that 
its doctrine is technically irreformable, but inter- 
pretation is a great matter; and words may be 
taken, in one generation, in a very different sense 
from that which was given to them in a preceding 
generation. That the discipline of the church is 
gradually changing — becoming more mild and 
rational, less arbitrary and despotic — can hardly 
be doubted. 

The chief additions to dogma which have been 
made during the past centur^^ are those proclaimed 
by the Vatican Council in 1870, the dogma of the 

261 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and 
the dogma of the infalHbiHty and supremacy of the 
pope. The first of these possesses an interest 
mainly academical; the second seems to have 
much practical significance. But the political 
analogies suggest that concentration of power is 
apt to result in the enlargement of liberty. It 
was monarchy, as Guizot has shown, that led 
in free institutions. The king took the part of 
the people against the feudal lords. And it is 
at least conceivable that the strengthening of the 
papal prerogative will lead to important reforms, 
both in the doctrine and in the discipline of the 
Roman Catholic Church. If the present pope 
were twenty years younger, such results might 
well be looked for during his reign. For it is doubt- 
ful whether the throne at the Vatican has ever been 
occupied by a pontiff of purer purpose, broader 
wisdom, or larger charity than Leo XIII. 

What, now, shall be said concerning the Protes- 
tant communions, whose numbers are so rapidly 
increasing and whose influence is so widely ex- 
tending? 

The Protestant principle of the right of private 
judgment has resulted in the multiplication of sects. 
Some variety of organization and ritual might well 
have grown from the sowing of the light; but the 
variation which would have appeared under normal 
conditions has undoubtedly been increased by 
human selfishness and ambition. It may be doubt- 
ed whether the emphasis which has been placed 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

upon the right of private judgment expresses a 
sound principle. In no kind of social organization 
are rights or liberties the primary concern. A 
famil}^ in which it is the first business of every 
member to assert his own rights, or to magnify 
his liberty, will not be a united and happy family. 
In the organic relations of the family, love and 
duty are fundamental — not rights and liberties. 

We may awake, by and by, to the fact that the 
same thing is true of the state. The attempt to 
base a commonwealth upon a doctrine of rights 
will probably result in social disintegration. A 
community in which it is the first business of every 
citizen to assert his own rights will not continue 
to be peaceful and prosperous. The social and 
political disorders which threaten the life of the 
nation all spring from the fact that the people 
have been trained to think more of rights than of 
duties. 

By misplacing the emphasis in the same w^ay. 
Protestantism has introduced into its life a dis- 
integrating element. Neither the right of private 
judgment nor any other right can be safely asserted 
as the foundation of the Christian Church. The 
foundation of the Church is loyalty to Christ and 
his kingdom; all rights are to be held and inter- 
preted under that obligation. The failure to do 
this — the assertion of the individual will as against 
the common welfare — has rent the Church into 
fragments and multiplied creeds and organiza- 
tions far beyond all the needs of varying tastes 

263 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

and intellects. We may admit that this is the 
opprobrium of Protestantism; its power is lessened 
and its life is marred by these needless divisions, 
and by the unlovely competitions that spring from 
them. But the last years of the century have 
witnessed some serious attempts to correct these 
abuses; some of the separated sects have come 
together in imity; others are approaching each 
other with friendly overtures; the tendencies 
seem now to be towards reunion rather than 
division. In Great Britain the Nonconformist 
bodies have formed a strong federation by which 
they are able to act together for many common 
purposes, and movements are on foot to bring 
about a similar organization in this country. If 
the principle of differentiation has been over- 
accentuated during the nineteenth century, there 
is now some reason to hope that the twentieth 
century will reinforce the principle of integra- 
tion; that loyalties will be emphasized as much 
as liberties, and the duty of co-operation rather 
more than the right of private judgment. 

The past century has been a period of theological 
agitation and upheaval in Protestant Christendom. 
The progress of physical science, the rise of the 
evolutionary philosophy, and the development of 
Biblical criticism have kept the theologians busy 
with the work of reconstruction. Germany has 
been the theological storm - centre. Kant's tre- 
mendous work had been done before the century 
came in, but Herder and Hegel and Schleiermacher 

264 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

were digging away at the foundations in the early 
years, and those who have come after them have 
kept the air full of the noivSes of hammer and saw 
and chisel as the walls have been going up. Much 
of the theology '' made in Germany " has appeared 
to be the product of the head rather than of the 
heart; formal logic deals rudely with the facts of 
the spiritual order. But the great theologians of 
the last half of the century, Dorner and Rothe and 
Nitzsch and Ritschl, although working on different 
lines, have abundantly asserted the reality of the 
spiritual realm; and it is now possible for the 
educated German to find a philosophy of religion 
w^hich reconciles modern science with the essential 
facts of Christianity. 

The most important religious movement of the 
nineteenth century in England is a reversion to 
sacramentalism, led by Newman and Pusey and 
William George Ward. Its ruling idea is that the 
sacraments have power in themselves to convey 
grace and salvation. This is essentially the doc- 
trine of the old Church, and the movement grad- 
ually took on the form of a reaction ; the adoration 
of the consecrated wafer, prayers for the dead, the 
use of incense — various Roman Catholic practices — 
were adopted one by one. In due time Newsman 
and Faber and Ward entered the Catholic com- 
munion; since their departure, the ideas and prac- 
tices for w^hich they stood have been rapidly gain- 
ing ground in the English Church. How far 
this doctrinal reaction is likely to go, it would 

265 



GREAT RELIGTONwS OF THE WORLD 

not be safe to predict. But it must be said of the 
High Church party that it is not wasting all its 
energies upon vestments and ceremonies; it is 
taking hold, in the most energetic manner, of the 
problems of society; in hand-to-hand work with 
the needy and degraded classes it is doing more, 
perhaps, than has ever been done by any other 
branch of the Christian Church in England. 

The remainder of the Protestants of Great Britain 
— the Broad Churchmen, the Nonconformists, the 
Scotch Presbyterians of the Established Church 
and of the United Free Church — with the entire 
Protestant body of the United States, have been 
subject to similar influences, and have been pass- 
ing through similar theological transitions. Some 
branches of the Protestant Church have been 
greatly affected by the prevailing scientific and 
critical inquiries, and some have been less dis- 
turbed by them, but the intellectual ferment has 
reached most of them; and modifications, more or 
less radical, have been made in all their creeds. 

These theological changes are not wholly due 
to the new conceptions of the world and of man 
w^hich modern science has introduced. Some of 
them, and these not the least important, are the 
fruit of a purified ethical judgment. The dogmas 
of the Church, as Sabatier has shown, spring from 
the life of the Church. If the Spirit of Christ is 
abiding in the hearts of his disciples, their views 
of truth will be constantly purified and enlarged. 
Many of the changes in theological theory which 

266 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

have taken place within the past century are to be 
thus explained. The practical disappearance of 
the hard Calvinistic interpretations which were 
prevalent in most of the Reformed Churches one 
hundred years ago has resulted from the cultivation 
of humaner feelings and from a better concep- 
tion of the nature of justice. Philosophically, the 
change consists in the substitution of righteous- 
ness for power in our definitions of the justice of 
God. The old theology emphasized the sovereign- 
ty of God in such a w^ay as to make it appear that 
what was central in Him w^as will — His deter- 
mination to have His own w^ay. " His mere good 
pleasure '' was the decisive element in His action. 
This theology was the apotheosis of will. The 
hard fact w^as disguised and softened in many 
ways, but it was alwaj^s there; that was the nerve 
of the doctrine. The later conceptions emphasize 
the righteousness of God more than His powder. 
His justice is not chiefly His determination to 
have His own way; it is His determination to do 
right, to recognize the moral constitution which 
He has given to His children, and to conform to 
that in His dealings with them. The assumption, 
nowadays, always is that of Abraham — that the 
Judge of all the earth will do right, that which will 
commend itself as right to the unperverted moral 
sense of His children. Theology has been ethi- 
cized ; that is the sum of it. To-day it is a moral 
science; one hundred years ago it was not. This 
is a tremendous change; none more radical or 

267 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

revolutionary^ has taken place in any of the sciences. 
To be rid of theories which required the damnation 
of non-elect infants and of all the heathen; which 
imputed the guilt of our progenitors to their off- 
spring; and which proclaimed an eternal kingdom 
of darkness, ruled by an evil potentate, whose 
ubiquity was but little short of omnipresence, whose 
resources pressed hard upon omnipotence, and 
whose access to human souls implied omniscience 
— is a great deliverance. The entire aspect of re- 
ligion has changed within the memory of many 
who will read these words. We are living under a 
different sky, and breathing a different atmosphere. 
That these horrible doctrines are obsolete is mani- 
fest from the fact that the great Scotch Presbyterian 
Churches have explained them away, and that 
their American brethren are slowly making haste 
to be free of them. It is long since they have been 
preached to intelligent congregations. 

The progress of Biblical criticism during the 
last quarter of the past century has been rapid and 
sometimes disquieting. Much work of a some- 
what fanciful character has been done, but a large 
number of important conclusions are accepted 
by most scholars. The prevailing teaching in 
the theological seminaries of the Evangelical 
Churches is that the Bible contains a revelation 
from God, in historical and prophetic documents 
of priceless value, holding truth . found nowhere 
else, and making known to us the way and the 
truth and the life; but that this revelation comes 

268 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

through human mediation, and is not free from 
human imperfection; that, while its spiritual ele- 
ments may be spiritually discerned, its parts are 
not of equal value, and that it is dangerous to 
impute to the whole book an infallibility which 
it nowhere claims. The new conception of the 
Bible has undoubtedly given a shock to many 
devout minds, who have been accustomed to re- 
gard it with superstitious veneration; and those 
who have been convinced by the arguments of the 
critics have not all learned to use it as it was meant 
to be used — to draw inspiration from it, instead of 
reading inspiration into it. Those who will seek 
to be inspired by it will find that it is inspired, 
because it is inspiring ; and there is reason to hope 
that the Bible may yet prove, under the new theories 
of its origin, a better witness for God than ever 
before. It is well that He should not any longer 
be held responsible for the human crudities and 
errors which it contains. 

The great development of the natural sciences 
and the rise of the evolutionary theories have also 
had their effect upon Christian theology. That 
there are vast numbers of Protestant Christians 
w^ho have been scarcely touched by these influences 
is true ; but these influences are shaping the thought 
of the world, and it is impossible that the theology 
of a living Church should not be profoundly af- 
fected by them. For natural science is simply 
telling us what God is doing in His world, and 
evolution is simply explaining the way in which 

269 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

His work is done. At bottom, all this is religious 
truth, of the most fundamental character; and, if 
Christian theology is true theology, it must include 
the truths of science and of evolution. 

Such an inclusion makes needful some impor- 
tant reconstructions of theological theory. It sub- 
stitutes for our mechanical theories of creation 
the thought of the immanent God, who, in the 
words of Paul, is above all and through all and in 
us all; nay, it gives us also that doctrine of the 
immanent Christ — the Logos, the infinite reason 
and love, of whom the same apostle speaks in words 
of such wonderfid significance : ''in whom we 
have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins; 
who is the image of the invisible God, the first- 
born of all creation; for in Him were all things 
created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things 
visible and things invisible, whether thrones or 
dominions or principalities or powers; all things 
have been created through Him, and unto Him; 
and He is before all things, and in Him all things 
hold together.''''' If the Christ-element, the ele- 
ment of self-sacrificing love, is the very matrix of 
the creation, then it ought not to surprise us if 
we find in nature itself the elements of sacrifice; 
and we do find them there, when we look for them. 
Over against the struggle for life is the struggle 
for the life of others; vicariousness is at the heart 
of nature. We begin to discern some deep mean- 
ing in the mystical saying that Christ represents 
* Col. i. 14-17. 
270 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

" the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world/' 
and we are able to see that He came to fulfil not 
merely the Levitical law, but the very law of life. 
All this has been, as yet, but imperfectly worked 
out in our theological theories; but it begins to be 
evident that the doctrine of the Incarnation will 
find, in the doctrine of evolution, an interpretation 
far more sublime than any which was possible 
under the mechanical theories of creation. 

In the development of Protestantism on its intel- 
lectual side there have been losses as well as gains. 
Where such liberty of thinking is allowed, there 
wdll be wild and foolish thinking; it is often for- 
gotten that the principle of reason is the principle 
of unity, and not of division or denial. There is 
a reasonless conservatism, which clings to beliefs 
long after thej^ have ceased to be credible; and 
there is a rash radicalism, which throw^s away 
truth untested. Protestant theology has suffered 
from both these causes. There has always been, 
and there still is, much shallow thinking; and, 
in the transitions which have been taking place, 
some have lost their faith. But there is good rea- 
son for believing that the Christians of to-day have 
a hold as firm as those of any former day upon es- 
sential Christian truth. 

On the side of life and practice, there have also 
been gains and losses. In some of the elements 
of the religious life we may be poorer than our 
forefathers were. There is not so much reverence 
now as once there was; but there is less of slavish 

271 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

fear. There is less intense devotional feeling; 
but there are also fewer cases of hopeless religious 
melancholy. We do not make so much of the 
Lord's day as men once did in some sections ; 
that is an undoubted loss. Yet there was a gloom 
and restraint in that old observance which we 
should be slow to recall. We do not, perhaps, 
quite adequately estimate the amount of irreligion 
which prevailed in this country in the early days 
of the nineteenth century. A careful historical 
comparison would reassure those who suppose that 
we are in danger of losing all our religion. 

The development of the Protestant Churches has 
been intensive as well as extensive; the work 
of the local Church has greatly broadened. The 
Church of to-day is a far more efficient instrument 
for promoting the Kingdom of God in the world 
than was the Church of one hundred years ago. 
At that date the Sunday-school work was just 
beginning; the Church did nothing for its own 
members but to hold two services on a Sunday, and 
sometimes a week-night service. In fact, it may 
be said that the Church did nothing at all; all the 
religious work was done by the minister. The 
conception that the Church is a working body, 
organized for the service of the community, had 
hardly entered into the thought of the minister or 
of the members. It was rather an ark of safety, 
in which men found temporary shelter on their 
way to heaven. 

The larger work, outside of its immediate fold^ 

X]2 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

was not contemplated. In 1800 there was no 
Foreign Missionary Society in existence on this 
continent, and no Bible Society ; a few feeble Home 
Missionary Societies had just been formed. There 
was no religious newspaper in the world. The 
vast outreaching w^ork of Christian education and 
Christian publication had not entered into the 
thought of the churches. Such efficient arms of 
the Christian service as the Young Men's and the 
Young Women's Christian Associations, the Socie- 
ties of Christian Endeavor, and the Salvation Army 
are of recent origin. 

What, then, shall we say of the equipment with 
which Christianity sets forth, at the beginning 
of the twentieth century, for the conquest of the 
world? Its geographical and political advan- 
tages have been named. What of its intellect- 
ual and spiritual resources? What of the appeal 
which it is prepared to make to the mind and heart 
of man? 

It may be assumed that man is not only a po- 
litical, but also a religious, animal; that religion 
is an everlasting reality. Some kind of religion 
men have always had and will always have; things 
unseen and eternal enter into their lives, and will 
always form an integral part of their experi- 
ence. We can hardly look for the invention of a 
new religion. Are any of the other existing re- 
ligious systems more likely than Christianity to 
satisfy the needs of humanity? Each of these 
religious systems contains great elements of truth 
s 273 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

and power. Is any one of them better fitted than 
Christianity to meet the wants of the human soul? 

Christianity has lost some of the weapons with 
which it was doing battle one hundred years ago. 
Its trust is not to be henceforth in an infallible 
book; the arsenal of its terrors has been despoiled 
of much that was once a great reliance; censure 
and coercion can no longer be profitably employed. 
But, in some respects, it has been strengthened 
for the work before it. 

The Christian doctrine has been greatly sim- 
plified. The elaborate creeds of a former day 
are disappearing. The metaphysical puzzles, in 
which so many minds were once entangled, are 
swept away. It is now well understood, among 
those who are the recognized leaders of Christian 
thought, that the essence of Christianity is personal 
loyalty to the Master and obedience to His law of 
love. Such a conception prepares the way for 
great unities and co-operations. 

The doctrine of the divine immanence, when 
once its deeper implications are understood, must 
have important results in Christian experience. 
The God in whom we live and move and have our 
being will not need to be certified by documents 
or symbolized by sacraments or demonstrated by 
logic; our knowledge of Him will be immediate 
and certain. If He is, indeed, the Life of all life; 
if He is '* more present to all things He made than 
anything unto itself can be''; if He is "the stream 
of tendency, whereby all things fulfil the law of 

274 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

their being"; if He is really ''working in us, to 
will and to do of His good pleasure/' then life pos- 
sesses a sacredness and a significance which few 
of us have yet conceived. This truth sanctifies and 
glorifies the whole of life. It is the truth which 
lies at the heart of what is known as the "new 
theology''; and, if the Christian pulpit can but 
grasp it and realize it, w^e shall have such a 
revival of religion as the world has never seen. 

The God who is over all and through all and 
in us all is known to the Christian Church of to- 
day as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
It is through the spirit that we know Him, and 
He is the Father of spirits ; His character is revealed 
to us in the life and words of Jesus ; our relation 
to Him is shown us in the filial trust of Jesus, and 
our relation to one another springs from this re- 
lation. The two truths of the divine Fatherhood 
and the human Brotherhood are the central truths 
of Christian theology to-day. This has never 
before been true. Men have always been calling 
God Father, but in their theories they have been 
making Him monarch. He was as much of a 
Father as He could be consistently with his func- 
tions as an absolute sovereign. The sovereignty 
was the dominant fact ; the Fatherhood was subor- 
dinate. All this is changed. It is believed to-day 
that there can be no sovereignty higher than father- 
hood, and no law stronger than love. 

The doctrine must have vast social consequences. 
When it is once fully accepted, and all that it im- 

275 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

plies is recognized and enforced, society will be 
regenerated and redeemed. If all men are, indeed, 
brothers, and owe to one another, in every rela- 
tion, brotherly kindness; if there is but one law 
of human association — ''Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself^'; if every man's business 
in the world is to give as much as he can, rather 
than to get as much as he can, then the drift of 
human society must now be in wrong directions, 
and there is need of a reformation which shall 
start from the centres of life and thought. We 
need not so much new machinery, as new ideals 
of personal obligation. 

This idea that Christ has come to save the world ; 
that His mission is not to gather his elect out of 
the world and then burn it up, but to establish 
the Kingdom of Heaven here, and that it is es- 
tablished by making the law of love the regula- 
tive principle of all the business of life, is prac- 
tically a new idea. Many, here and there, have 
tentatively held it, and their faltering attempts 
to live by it have produced what we have had of 
the precious fruits of peace and good will among 
men. Charity and philanthropy have not been 
unknown; the spirit of Christ has found in them 
a beautiful expression; within that realm the 
Kingdom of Heaven has been set up. What we 
need to learn is the truth that the law of love gov- 
erns the factory as well as the hospital; that the 
statesman and the economist must reckon with it, 
no less than the preacher and philanthropist. 

276 



THE OUTLOOK FOR CHRISTIANITY 

Such is the issue which the logic of events is 
forcing upon the Christian Church. Christianity 
must rule or abdicate. If it cannot give the law 
to society, the world has no need of it. Not by 
might nor by power can its empire be established; 
only by clear witnessing to the supremacy of love. 
But the time has come when there must be no 
faltering in this testimony. Hitherto, it has 
hardly dared to say that Love is King; the king- 
doms of this world have been conceded to Mammon. 
With the dawning of the new century comes the 
deepening conviction that the rule of Mammon 
never can bring order and peace; and it begins 
to be credible that the way of the Christ is the 
way of life, for industry as well as for charity, 
ior nations as well as for men. 

That the principle of the Christian morality is 
the foundation of the social order, and that society 
will never be at peace until it rests on this foun- 
dation, is the claim which Christianity is now pre- 
pared to make. The ground of our hope for the 
continuance and prevalence of the Christian re- 
ligion lies in the conviction that it will be able to 
make good this claim. 

WAwShington Gladden. 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 



One of the most ancient images of the Christian 
Church is that of a ship tossed about on the waves, 
yet never sinking. This image was painted more 
than once on the w^alls of the Roman catacombs, 
precisely when it seemed as if Christianity could 
not possibly hold out much longer against the 
impact of social and juridical forces that had 
sworn its extermination. Nevertheless, the Fish- 
erman of Galilee, with his brethren, survived this 
first great hurricane of opposition, and planted 
the victorious symbol of the new religion on the 
Capitol and the Palatine — over the shrine of Roman 
religion, and amid the councils of the Roman 
state. On the morrow^ of this first great reckoning 
of the new spirit in mankind with the old established 
forms of belief and government, a tremor of as- 
tonishment seized on the priests and philosophers 
of the pagan world, that an obscure Syrian sect 
should have at last lifted a triumphant head. 
It seemed as though all the criteria of mankind 
— common-sense, logic, reason, history, analogy 
— w^ere at once and hopelessly shattered, and a 
wonder-world set up in the place of the familiar 

281 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

realities of society. It is an old story how the 
few remaining pagans hoped against hope, until 
they saw the fall of the whole fabric of Western 
civilization, and the figure of a Universal Church 
interposed between organized society and the 
elemental forces of barbarism that threatened it 
from the North and East. In those all-embracing 
arms, the world of Greece and Rome, that thought 
to perish doubly, was firmly seized and made to 
live again. 

Since that day Christianity has dominated 
all modern historj^ Its morality, based on the 
loving kindness of an Eternal Father and the 
mystic brotherhood with the God-Man, has ren- 
ovated the face of the earth. It has set firmly 
the corner-stone for all future civilization, the 
conviction of a common humanity that has been 
deeply rooted in us by no stoicism, but by the 
story of Jesus Christ and by the lives and deaths 
of countless Christian men and women. It has 
clarified at once the sense of sin and the reasons 
for hope. It has touched the deepest springs of 
efficient conviction; preached successfully, in 
season and out of season, of mercy and justice 
and peace; affected intimately every function of 
domestic life; thrown a sheltering veil of sanctity 
about maid and mother and home; stood out 
against the fierce ambitions and illicit loves of 
rulers and the low passions of the multitude. 
It has healed and cleansed whole legislations, 
and ''filled out with a vivifying spirit" the noble 

282 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

but inorganic letter of great maxims that a Seneca 
or an Epictetus might utter, but could not cause 
to live. It has distinctly raised the social and 
civil life of all civilized humankind. It bears 
within itself the antidote of a certain divine pres- 
ence, whereby it overcomes forever those germs 
of decay and change that cause the death of all 
other societies. Its earliest writers and exponents 
had a subtle sense of its true character, when they 
took over from paganism, and applied to the work 
of Jesus, the symbolic myth of the phoenix, em- 
blem of a native organic and indestructible vitality. 
If we believe the eminent statistician, Mr. Michael 
G. Mulhall, the population of the world in 1898 
was 1,450,000,000. Of these, 764,500,000 were yet 
pagans, nearly all located in Asia (667,800,000) 
and in Africa (91,000,000). In Europe there are 
none who can be officially described as pagans; 
in Oceanica there are 4,400,000, and in America 
1,300,000. Therefore, on its oldest and most fa- 
vorable field, the only tenable forms of paganism 
have gone down absolutely before the shining of 
Christian truth, a symbol of what we may hope 
for in the future over the two continents yet ad- 
dicted to paganism. The Christians of the world 
number 501,600,000, of whom 348,500,000 belong 
to Europe, 126,400,000 to America, with a scatter- 
ing of 12,600,000 in Asia, 4,400,000 in Africa, 
9,700,000 in Oceanica. That is, the most en- 
lightened and progressive portion of the Old World, 
Europe, with its noble adult daughter in the New 

383 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

World, is still entirely Christian, after nearly 
sixteen centuries of external struggle against the 
forces of barbarism and Islam, and internal strug- 
gles of the deepest and most momentous nature. 
As the future of humanity rests henceforth in 
the hands of the men who guide, politically and 
intellectually, the society of Europe and the New 
World of North and South America, I cannot 
but see in this distribution and preponderance 
of the Christian masses an omen of great hope- 
fulness for the future of the religion of Jesus Christ. 
I know that there is not now that absolute unity 
of the Christian multitudes that once existed and 
is yet the necessary, indispensable, ideal condi- 
tion of that religion. I shall come directly to this 
fundamental point. But I feel justified in be- 
lieving that, among these five hundred millions 
of Christians, there are rough, imperfect, un- 
finished unities of tradition, practice, and spirit; 
that they all look up to the Son of Mary as the 
Redeemer of humanity; that He marks for them 
the true line of delimitation between the Old and 
the New; that in and through Him is the firm 
bond of union that holds us all to a common Father, 
a Giver of all good things, and a purifying, in- 
flaming Spirit, that acts in a manifold but mystic 
manner on all who have in any way confessed 
that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man. 

Were this unity perfect among Christians, 
there can be no doubt that long since the whole 
world would have been won over to the Gospel of 

?84 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

Jesus, that its sweet influences would have trans- 
muted all the hardness and imperfections of our 
common humanity, by lifting us all into that 
higher spiritual sphere of brotherhood with the 
Redeemer of our souls, and sonship with the Head 
of our race. It is this lack of unity among Chris- 
tians that makes it even possible for any other 
religion, old or new, to set up a comparison with 
it, to challenge its immortal titles to admiration 
and acceptance. For lack of unity, the impact 
of the missionary labors is broken, and the in- 
credible sacrifices of Christian men and women 
must be repeated, often in vain, from generation 
to generation. This defect of our Christianity it 
is which enables the savage man, as well as the 
man of a foreign culture, to escape the arguments 
and appeals of the Christian apostle. It also ren- 
ders almost nugatory the efforts of Christianity, 
on its original soil, to dominate even the most 
tangible forces of the world and the devil. 

The life and teaching of Jesus Christ himself 
have nothing but victories to chronicle since His 
appearance among men. Every century is a new 
campaign from which He returns to the Heavenly 
Father, crowned with innumerable laurels, and 
leading captive innumerable multitudes of human 
souls. The records of history are full of the most 
astonishing conquests by Him of individual souls, 
voluntary submissions to the irresistible charm 
of the Son of Man. There is no altitude of intellect 
so towering that it has not bent before Him, no 

285 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

seat of power so high that it has not done homage 
to Him. Philosophy and criticism, history and 
the natural sciences, have sent over to Him, without 
ceasing, their noblest worthies as pledges of victory. 
To go no further back than the century just elapsed, 
we may say that every page of its annals is bright 
with the illustrious names of great men who have 
been proud to confess the divinity of Jesus. Some 
of them never knew a wavering of allegiance; 
others came back to Him by a kind of postliminary 
process, having learned by hard experience the 
truth of the apostolic cry of Saint Peter : " Lord, 
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life.'' * From this point of view there 
is never any diminution of the work of Jesus 
Christ. His benign and gracious figure domi- 
nates forever all life and society. Scarcely, in- 
deed, was He known to the world when we are 
told that He won the personal admiration of great 
Roman emperors like Tiberius and Hadrian and 
Alexander Severus. Sweet legends of the venera- 
tion of an Augustus and an Abgar cling forever 
to His person — symbols of that constant self- 
surrender in love and adoration which has gone 
on since then, and will cease no more. 

What is the secret of this constant and cos- 
mopolitan devotion to Jesus? From what deep 
springs of history and human nature do the forces 
flow that keep it forever alive, in spite of the mul- 
titudinous accidents of time and space and change 

* John vi. 69. 
286 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

that affect so thoroughly all other phenomena of 
life? Seciirus judicat orbis terrarum. It can be 
no slight bond that holds forever such elastic 
and elusive forces .as the minds and hearts of men, 
in varying epochs and lands, periods, forms and 
degrees of culture. To all Catholics, it is as sim- 
ple as the sun that shines in the heavens, or as the 
air we breathe. 

To us, the religion of Jesus Christ — for we 
maintain, on the authority of the gospels, that 
He founded a religion — is no vague resultant of 
world - forces that found their proper time and 
suitable expression in the Son of Mary. Indeed, 
the first great domestic struggle of the new re- 
ligion was against just those loose, unclear forces 
of Gnosticism and Eclecticism that desired to 
fasten their dying causes to the vigorous young 
body of Christian Faith, but which she repelled 
with clear consciousness of their desire and of 
her repugnance. To us, Christianity is no philos- 
ophy, however elevated and potent, but a divine x/ 
thing in the sense of an immediate, positive rev- 
elation. Hence, in its earliest documents, it 
is known as "The Name," "The Work," "The 
Manifestation'' of an Omnipotent Divine Will, 
the closest and sublimest bond that can unite the 
divinity with mankind. From among the philos- 
ophers of the world, there could never come a 
Redeemer. And this is precisely what we wel- 
come in Jesus Christ, the figure and the office 
of a Divine Atoner for the sins of the world, the 

287 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

Saviour of mankind from the inherited and actual 
burden of sin. 

Hence it is that Christianity is the most intensely 
personal of all religions. It presumes, as no other, 
the unwavering belief in and concern for an im- 
mortal and responsible individual soul, the con- 
fession of an Omniscient and All- Just Judge, a 
known and possible code of conduct, and a clearly 
apprehended sanction that waits upon the viola- 
tion or neglect of that code. The ideal of the 
individual Christian is the imitation of Jesus 
Christ, ''the image of the invisible God, the first- 
born of every creature, . . . the head of all 
principality and power, ... for in Him 
dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead corporally.''* 
And, inasmuch as He realizes in His own person 
and circle of influence this sublime model, Chris- 
tianity may be said to live or die for Him. 

But how shall the individual follower of Jesus 
know His will, and, knowing it, follow it perfectly? 
For this purpose Jesus formed a visible society, 
destined to embrace all who would accept Him 
as God and Master. He gave it the power to re- 
produce and continue itself, and conveyed to it 
the custody of His teaching and the example of 
His life, with vicarious authority to interpret 
both in time of need, and to decide with finality. 
To its court of appeal He indicated not only the 
letter but the spirit of its procedure. He assured 
this society of His helpful presence forever, and 

* Col. i. i8 ; ii. 9, 10. 
288 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

also of the direction and guidance of the Holy 
Spirit. He foretold for it a career of great trial 
and sorrow, but also foreshadowed for it periods 
of triumph and glory. But, above all, He imposed 
on it the absolute condition of unity. This is 
evident, not only from all His devices of constitu- 
tion and description throughout the gospels, but, 
in a very particular manner, from the great lyrical, 
almost dithyrambic, monologue in which, on the 
eve of His Atonement, He pours forth the very 
soul of prayer to the Heavenly Father.* Here 
the underlying motif is unity, that shadow of the 
divine life, the condition of the new sanctity, the 
mark and proof of genuine Christianity. 

" And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who 

through their word shall believe in me : 
That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in 

thee : that they also may be one in us : that the world 

may believe that thou hast sent me. 
And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to 

them : that they may be one, as we also are one." 

Elsewhere, He insists that there shall be one 
fold and one shepherd, that whoever gathers not 
with Him scattereth, that whoever receives His 
disciples "receives me and Him who sent me.'' 
There can be no doubt, then, as to an effective 
will of Jesus that this society should be one to 
the end of time, and among all kinds and condi- 
tions of men. It was also to be holy and stainless, 
imperishable and all - glorious, self - identical and 

* John xvii. 20-23. 
T 289 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

self -witnessing ; but the note of unity predominates 
throughout. His prophetic soul forecasts and 
denounces every attempt to rend this unity, as 
the chief obstacle to the success of His life and 
teaching among men, as the great stumbling- 
block, the creators of which He will hold eminently 
responsible in the last great accounting. 

Now, when we enter upon the last century of 
the mystic cycle of two thousand years during 
which the gospel of Jesus has been preached, 
principally by and through this society which is 
His Holy Church,* we seize with a terrible earnest- 
ness and directness the meaning of Christ's lan- 
guage about unity. Just as that note dominates 
all others in the gospels, so does its infringement 
or diminution dominate the history of His Church, 
the public propagation of His saving and consol- 
ing teachings. The avowedly anti-Christian forces 
of the past two centuries could never have scored 
their triumphs were it not for the mighty cleft 
that divided Protestant from Catholic Christendom. 
While conflict ran high as to the points on which 
they differed, the enemy was pillaging such parts 
of the original estate as they yet held in common. 
The Christian Church was, truly, the mother of 
all modern happiness and liberty; yet a minority 
of rebels or apostates was allowed to set aside her 
claims, to contaminate all the sources of public 
and private education, to enlist against her the 
literature and the arts that she had saved and 

* Eph. V. 27. 
290 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

cherished in a night of storm and disaster. And 
all this, because centuries of unhappy division had 
accustomed both Catholics and Protestants to look 
to one another only for suspicion and coldness 
and uncharity. Truly, the divine eye of Jesus 
saw well through the ages, and what He saw could 
only have intensified His will to base His Church 
upon a rock of unity that could not be overthrown. 
Could we restore to-day the former unity of all 
Christian peoples, with what ease we could look 
forth to the lifting of China to the highest plane of 
Christian welfare and culture! Could we be once 
more as in the fifteenth century, with what ease 
could the gospel of the Prince of Peace be preached 
throughout Africa from the lips of united brethren, 
and not amid the horrors of injustice and war that 
are leaving their ominous, red tracks across every 
newly opened land ! So, too, if there were again the 
old-time unity of East and West, what a quicken- 
ing there could be of the slumbering forces of the 
Greek Church, and what a useful race the Coptic 
Christians would be for the evangelization of Dark- 
est Africa! Whatever way we look, the functions 
of unity seem so great and valuable that all the 
reasons which in the past operated to destroy it are 
pushed into the background, as no longer worthy of 
consideration. Indeed, as time wears on, and 
men take a broader and more philosophic view of 
things, it will be seen that each individual schism 
or heresy was less necessary or justifiable, in the 
light of the magnificent horizon of possible efforts 

291 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

and enterprises that is now dawning upon us, but 
to which we are unable to reach by reason of our 
lack of thorough and durable unity. Can any 
genuine Christian contemplate with equanimity 
the sad results that the Monophysitism of the fifth 
and sixth centuries has entailed upon the churches 
of the Orient by its substantial contribution to the 
success of Islam, and thereby upon all Christian 
society, mediaeval and modern? There is in all 
such cases an encysting of the general Christian 
spirit and strength, a gradual hardening and crys- 
tallizing of all those currents of enthusiasm and 
daring that once poured in from the great main 
flow of Christian grace, a steady uplifting of walls 
of separation that can only render more narrow, 
if in some cases more deep and intense, the tides of 
Christian life, thought, endeavor. 

To the Catholic, the unity of the Church, that 
especial desire of Jesus Christ, is based upon the 
Rock of Peter. He finds the reasons for his belief 
in the Petrine headship of the Apostolic College, 
in the special promises and privileges accorded to 
Peter by Our Lord, in the peculiar activity of Peter 
and the pre-eminence that he obtains in the in- 
spired records of primitive Christian life. No other 
See than that of Peter ever laid claim to a hegemony 
over Christianity, while, from the earliest days, 
that See claimed this supreme ascendency. The 
last chapters of St. Clement's epistle to the Corin- 
thians (circa A.D. 96), the almost contemporary 
epistle of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Romans, 

292 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

the famous description by St. Irenseus of the Roman 
Church as the oldest, greatest, most glorious, and 
most authoritative of all the apostolic churches, are 
only a few among many indications of the right of 
supreme leadership that archaic Christian society 
adjudged to the See of Rome. 

Doubtless, in the infancy of Christendom, this 
supremacy was chiefly visible in the mystic pomp 
of martyrdom and the organized services of charity. 
But it was an organic and native right, and could 
therefore adapt itself, as it did, to all the actual 
needs of Christian society, as they developed from 
internal growth or under pressure from without. 
The little pseudo-Cyprian tract. Against Gamesters, 
is an index that, before Constantine, they claimed 
to rule the "Power of the Keys.'' In its spirit, 
this very ancient discourse of a Roman bishop 
does not differ from any formula of Leo the Great. 
Yet Eusebius is guarantee that this power was 
chiefly exercised over the churches by acts of 
charity that extended from the apostolic times down 
to his own day. I need not rehearse the functions 
of Rome at a later period, in repressing the most 
disruptive, anti-Christian heresies, in the conver- 
sion and instruction of the barbarians, in the forma- 
tion of their rulers and their laws, in the uplifting 
and idealizing of the incipient national lives of 
France, Germany, England, and Spain. Writing 
in 1808, Tobler could say that, without the papacy, 
there would not have remained in the world any 
universal religion, faith would have entirely dis- 

293 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF. THE WORLD 

appeared. And the contemporary Swiss historian, 
the great Johann von Miiller, could write that their 
paternal hands held up bravely the whole hierarchy, 
and at the same time preserved the liberty of all 
the states of Europe. ''It was the pope who re- 
strained and governed, by means of the principles 
of religion and the fear of God, the bold, unbridled 
youth of our modern states.'' The Gregories, 
Alexanders, and Innocents of the Middle Ages 
were, indeed, as a wall against the torrent of ab- 
solutism that then threatened to invade the whole 
earth. If, in the weakness of mediaeval, popular 
organization, the insidious despotism of the Orient 
failed to prevail in the courts of the West, it was 
because the violent and lascivious nobles were 
forever held in check by the fear or the respect 
of him who sat in the chair of Peter. And, when 
the awful cataclysm of the Reformation took place, 
it was still the insight, genius, and energy of Rome 
that kept intact a solid phalanx of Catholicism, 
through all the defections and apostasies of a cen- 
tury. 

The average non-Catholic does not easily seize 
the point of view from which the Roman Catholic 
looks on the pope. To us, he is the divinely ap- 
pointed High Court of Appeals of Christendom, 
the '' Dominus Apostolicus/' or living embodiment 
of the supreme, vicarious authority of the Apostolic 
College. Hence, we measure the progress or decay 
of the Christian cause and interest, very largely, 
by the condition of the Roman See. It is for us 

294 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

the working heart of Christendom. And the 
words of affection and veneration that we use 
when speaking of it we beheve to be justified by its 
eminently paternal character and spirit, its origin, 
its age, its manifold experience, its countless ser- 
vices to the virtuous and the oppressed, its supra- 
national functions. For its sake, we have imitated 
the Geux of Holland, and converted a title of re- 
proach into a title of distinction. Every Catholic 
bishop knows, by historj^ and by instinct, that his 
strength and dignity are dependent on the strength 
and dignity of the pope. And the latter knows, 
in turn, that his first duty is the confirmation of 
the bishops in faith and enthusiasm." 

The last great storm through which our Catholic 
Christianity has gone was the French Revolution. 
The brunt of this was borne by the See of Rome. 
Two popes, Pius VI. and Pius VIL, learned in 
their own persons what the agony and the glory of 
martyrdom are like. To their personal courage 
and independence is very largely owing the re- 
crudescence of Catholic affection for a See which, 
in these bishops, showed itself truly apostolic. We 
consider that it is owing to the extreme watch- 
fulness and foresight of the popes in this century 
that schism and heresy have been so little in evi- 
dence. More than one source or cause of these 
great disruptions has showed itself. But, from 
whatever quarter the danger threatened, it was 
conquered by the action of the Apostolic See. In 

* Luke xxii. 31, 32. 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

the mean time the numbers of its adherents have 
grown with the growth of the world, and may be 
set down at the opening of the twentieth century 
as more than one-half of the five hundred millions 
who bear the name of Christians.* Nowhere, 
perhaps, is this phenomenal growth more notice- 
able than among the English-speaking peoples. 
From the most insignificant place in the statistics 
of Catholicism, they have come in this century 
to count nearly two hundred and fifty bishops, in a 
total of less than one thousand ; and, from a hand- 
ful of believers outside of Ireland, to be more than 
twenty-one millions, with over twenty-one thousand 
priests and more than eighteen thousand churches, t 
To this large and compact body, habituated to 
look on Christianity as a living organism of which 
they are integrant parts, the pope represents all 
the counsel, experience, sympathy, glory, and 
also the sufferings of the past. No other figure 
in the modern world so rouses the hearts of men as 
the venerable bishop who dwells in the Vatican, the 
Shepherd of Humanity, the only voice that to-day, 

* At the late Australasian Catholic Congress, Mr. Michael G. 
Mulhall declared that, of the 501,600,000 Christians in the world, 
290,000,000 were Roman Catholics. 

t In a work lately published by Messrs. Swnn & Sonnenschein, 
of London, I find the following statistics of conversions to Catholi- 
cism within fifty years from among the higher classes of English 
society : " Since 1850," it is there said, " the persons who have 
gone over to the Church of Rome include 445 graduates of Oxford, 
213 of Cambridge, and 63 of other universities, besides 27 peers, 
244 military officers, 162 authors, 129 lawyers, and 60 physicians. 
Among the graduates were 446 clergymen of the Established 
Church." 

296 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

in the midst of universal religious decay, can 
speak to all society with an archaic authority, an 
unparalleled experience, and a universal good- 
will that all must recognize, if they do not obey. 
His genuine wrongs and sufferings must some 
day be redressed, for they have an intimate re- 
lationship with the wrongs and sufferings that 
the common people everywhere loudly proclaim 
that they themselves are compelled to bear. It 
is an eternally true law of history that any signal 
violation of justice avenges itself eventually upon 
all human society, and demands an equally signal 
reparation. 

Catholic students of history and politics agree 
that there is a remarkable unity of purpose and 
means, a keenness and directness of vision, in 
the onslaughts which were made upon the papacy 
during the past century, and that ended in the 
utter destruction of its public status as a civil 
power. But they know, too, that the peace, hap- 
piness, and prosperity assured by the doctrinaires 
and sectaries of the whole century are not yet the 
lot of that nation which has been built over the 
grave of the pope's old and venerable political 
authority. They rightly suspect, from the analogy 
of the past, the character of the peoples of the penin- 
sula, and the scope of those who yet detain his 
political authority, that the measure of the popular 
sufferings of Italy is not filled up. On the other 
hand, the peoples of all Europe are threatened with 
evils of the same nature. The men who sit in the 

297 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

high places of these nations speak with Httle hope 
of the near future. Mihtarism, that has always 
ended in despotism, and a godless industrialism, 
that must needs breed popular envy and hatred, 
lift their heads with pride and assurance of future 
domination. Again an era of force, cloaked but 
poorly by a coarse luxury and license, dawns upon 
the Continental nations, with all its sure subversion 
of hardly conquered popular rights and liberties, 
and the equally sure retaliation of the oppressed. 
The Roman Catholic is convinced that all these 
evils which seriously threaten Christian Europe are 
owing to the popular neglect of the simple and 
sane principles of the gospel, their quasi-official 
expulsion from public life, the fatal assumption 
that there can be a sufficient and working moral- 
ity without religion and worship — that is, without 
public recognition of God, as Creator, Father, Pro- 
vider, and Saviour. To him, the symbol of this 
secular activity is the degradation and humiliation 
of the one great force that stood publicly and of- 
ficially for the historic Christian morality. We 
recognize and welcome those numerous voices from 
outside our fold that daily join themselves to us in 
regretting the destruction of a supreme moral 
tribunal among Christians that could alone ef- 
ficiently avert the evils of war, alone persuade 
whole peoples to a hearty reconciliation. But we 
listen with greater veneration to those words of 
Leo XIII. , in his late encyclical on Jesus Christ, 
in which the august nonagenarian, himself one of 

298 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

the few survivors of the century, points out the 
dangers of the future and mingles with his warn- 
ing the words of remedy : 

" So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious 
the dangers involved that we must either anticipate ultimate 
ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is, of course, both 
right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the 
masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible 
way ; but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation 
of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater 
than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken 
in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is 
the power which once before saved the world from destruc- 
tion when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once 
remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to re- 
vive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be heal- 
ed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die 
away ; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened 
to both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will 
realize that they must observe justice and charity, the latter 
self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domes- 
tic life will be firmly established by the salutary fear of God 
as the lawgiver." 

The Roman Catholic believes that no teacher of 
morality that the world knows, or could create, can 
ever speak a more true and noble language, or 
emphasize his teaching with greater authority 
and experience. Every word is coined out of the 
common Christian treasury of truth, and is re- 
ceived as such by more than one-half of Christen- 
dom, not only because it corresponds to the written 
records of the life of Christ, but because it comes 
from the mouth of one whom He has set up among 

299 



GREAT RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 

us as His authorized witness, exponent, and mouth- 
piece. With equal masterhness, the pope touches 
on the original sin of our public life — its rejection 
of the spirit of Jesus, as manifested in the gospel 
and the history of Christianity: 

" In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which 
dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the 
laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions 
and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules 
over all without let or hinder ance, there the order established 
by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and 
prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, 
urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should 
never have gone astray ; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, 
and the Life — and this on the part not only of individ- 
uals, but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to 
this His own rightful possession. All elements of the nation- 
al life must be made to drink in the life which proceedeth 
from Him — legislation, political institutions, education, mar- 
riage and family life, capital and labor. Every one must 
see that the very growth of civilization which is so ardently 
desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows 
not so much by material wealth and prosperity as by the 
spiritual qualities of morality and virtue." 

I am aware that the obstacles in the way of the 
unity of Christendom are very great, and that 
to many minds they seem hopeless. Nevertheless, 
it is possible; perhaps, if our prayers were fervent 
enough, this incalculable boon would be again 
granted, that we might all own one God, one faith, 
one baptism. Thereby, we would again bring 
to bear upon the new life that opens before man- 
kind the benign, regenerating influences of the ex- 

300 



CATHOLIC CHRISTIANITY 

ample and the teachings of our Lord, but this time 
with the impact of a common unity. Even Me- 
lanchthon recognized its necessity; and for many 
years the theologians of the Reformation were oc- 
cupied with the bases of such a step as might have 
been the noblest act of the sixteenth century. The 
hope clung to life in the hearts of Grotius, Leibnitz, 
George Calixtus. In the Anglican Church, Laud, 
and perhaps Usher, cherished the same desire. 
It has lived a cryptic life in Oxford, and among 
a small number of the more spiritual Anglican 
clergy. Very noble souls, like Ambrose de Lisle 
Philips, have given themselves to the furtherance 
of the ideal. Societies exist in Germany and 
France for that purpose — societies of prayer, per- 
suasion, and example. The popes have never 
ceased to solicit officially the wandering families 
of Christendom to come back within the common 
fold; and, while the Church cannot sacrifice the 
truth of her teaching, in all other ways the return 
would be made easy. She has only deep sorrow 
and abundant tears for the dissensions of Chris- 
tendom, knowing well that they are the chief cause 
of the persecutions it undergoes, the delay of its 
triumph over the hearts and souls of men, and the 
rejoicings of its eternal enemies that at last they 
have fixed the limits of its influence and marked 
the hour of its downfall and ruin. 

J. Card. Gibbons. 

THE END 



MAY 21 1912 



